Frontmatter -- Preface to the handbook series -- Preface -- Table of contents -- 1. Pragmatic competence: Development and impairment -- I. Pragmatic development in a first language -- 2. Pragmatic development in a first language: An overview -- 3. Communicative act development -- 4. Acquisition of epistemic and evidential expressions -- 5. Acquiring implicatures -- 6. Acquiring irony -- 7. Acquiring prosody -- 8. Pragmatic development in the (middle and) later stages of life -- II. Pragmatic development in a second language -- 9. Pragmatic development in L2: An overview -- 10. Teaching speech acts in a second language -- 11. Learning how to interpret indirectness in an L2 -- 12. Comprehension of implicatures and humor in a second language -- 13. Pragmatic transfer -- 14. Developing pragmatic awareness -- 15. Developing pragmatic competence in a study abroad context -- 16. Testing pragmatic competence in a second language -- III. Pragmatic disorders -- 17. Pragmatic disorders: An overview -- 18. Pragmatic competence in autism spectrum disorders -- 19. Pragmatic competence in Down syndrome -- 20. Pragmatic competence in aphasia -- 21. Pragmatics and dementia -- 22. Assessing pragmatic competence in developmental disorders -- Contributors -- Name Index -- Subject Index