A discussion of the role of sociolinguistics in the treatment of communication disorders focuses on issues related to dialect and language variation. It begins with an examination of linguistic diversity and dynamic description of language, reporting on a study of speech and language pathologists' judgments of sentences in African American Vernacular English. The sociolinguistic model of systematic variation within a single language is outlined, and related research is reviewed. Three trends in the field of communication disorders that reflect an underlying sociolinguistic perspective are examined: (1) concern over remediation models that fragment language behaviors in a way that does not reflect real language usage; (2) focus on language function rather than form; and (3) concern for generalization of therapy-based learning to real-world usage. A rationale for sociolinguistic education for specialists in communication disorders is presented. An experimental curriculum in exploring language variation and dialects, designed for grades 4 and 5, is then described. (Contains 84 references.) (MSE)