Dialectal Differences: Professional and Clinical Implications

Adler, Sol

doi:10.1044/jshd.3601.90

Cited by 16 publications

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“…[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] This seminal work became foundational for later descriptive research and for those focusing on the clinical issues concerned with distinguishing language deficits from language differences characterized by AAE. 4,12,[22][23][24][25][26][27] Research on AAE has led to the proposal of several models for assessing AAE-speaking children. Some have suggested abandoning standardized tests for African American children altogether in favor of ''nonstandardized'' assessment methods.…”

Section: Multicultural Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Challenge of Language Assessment for African American English-Speaking Children: A Historical Perspective

Seymour¹

2004

Semin Speech Lang

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The diagnostic problem of how validly to assess the language of children who speak dialects different from Mainstream American English (MAE) has challenged the field of communication disorders for several decades. The key to its solution is to recognize differences due to dialect or development and remove them from the initial diagnosis of a disorder. A new approach to the puzzle, implemented jointly by University of Massachusetts scholars and the Psychological Corporation (TPC), takes two directions: (1) it provides new normative data on African American English (AAE) development, and (2) it proposes a level of analysis deeper than dialect for the discovery of alternate markers of a disorder. We present three objectives for a language assessment instrument designed to solve this longstanding problem: (1) to answer the problem/no problem question for a given child; (2) to provide explanatory data about the nature of the problem; and (3) to achieve objectives 1 and 2 in a way that is culturally and linguistically fair to both speakers of MAE and speakers of other dialects of English such as AAE.KEYWORDS: Sources of language variation, Mainstream American English (MAE), African American English (AAE), cultural and linguistic bias, contrastive and noncontrastive language features, ASHA's position paper on social dialectsLearning Outcomes: As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to describe (1) the three aspects of language that must be addressed when attempting to validly assess the language of a child who is speaking African American English (AAE), and (2) the clinical problems presented when attempting to validly assess the language of a child who is speaking AAE. Story C: Once upon a time a little boy wanted to play with the train. And he tryna get the train, but his mean brother holdin' it up high. So the big boy put it under his bed. When the big brother in the kitchen eatin' his sandwich, the little boy take he train and he put it in his toy box. Then the big boy came back and he thinkin' of the train. And he look under the bed but he don't find nothin'. Evaluating(Ages 6;3)Story D: The big guy. . . the wittle brother wants to play with the choo-choo train. The big guy hiding it under his bed. The wittle guy. . . the wittle brother gotten it and the wittle brother putting it in his toy box. Then the brother came in the door. Then he came look for the toy. Then look under his bed. (Ages 6;7)The narratives presented above show four very different children. Three of them differ in expected ways. One differs in ways characteristic of a child with a language disorder.To identify which narrator shows evidence of a language disorder, three aspects of child language variation must be addressed. The evaluation of a disorder must first take into account the child's dialect status and developmental status. In determining which of these narrators has a disorder and is in need of language services, the speech-language pathologist (SLP) must distinguish which elements derive from the child's stag...

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Section: Multicultural Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Challenge of Language Assessment for African American English-Speaking Children: A Historical Perspective

Seymour¹

2004

Semin Speech Lang

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“…Because the BE dialect varies from one area of the United States to another area, no one set of morphological rules applies to every BE speaker. It appears that the authors (Adler, 1971(Adler, , 1979Dillard, 1972;Hodson, 1986;Khan & Lewis, 1986;Mallory & Chapman, 1978;Seymour & Miller-Jones, 1981;Smitherman, 1977) cited here are describing BE speakers in their own geographical areas; consequently, all of the sound changes described here may not be true of BE speakers in Portland,…”

Section: Sound Changes In Black Englishmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Rules of BE grammar dictate the omission of -s that occurs in SE for regular third person singular and possessive forms. Thus, "run/runs" and "John/John's" (Adler, 1971(Adler, , 1979 could be described as stridency deletion.…”

Section: Class Deficiencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Types of phonological processes occurring in normal Black English speakers

Rella¹

2000

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Black English (BE) is a rule-governed linguistic system with its own phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. BE is a dialect, not a disordered variation of standard English (SE). When compared to SE, BE phonology has been described in terms of omissions, substitutions, and additions. This study looked at normal BE speakers in Portland, Oregon and described their dialectal differences The mean occurrences of the phonological processes used by the BE group were compared with those used by the SE group via two-tailed t-tests for independent means.The results showed that the normal BE subjects used 8 of the 36 phonological processes significantly more frequently than SE subjects, including consonant sequence reduction, postvocalic singleton deficiency, strident deficiency, velar obstruent deficiency, liquid /1/ deficiency, nasal deficiency, vowelization, labial assimilation, and place shifts. Although not significantly, some BE speakers used liquid /r/ deficiency, stopping, and palatalization while some SE speakers used prevocalic singleton deficiency and prevocalic voicing.Possible reasons that the results were somewhat different than expected are: 1) phonological processes may only occur in specific phonemic environments in BE; 2) phonological processes may more likely occur in connected speech; 3) most of the BE speakers may have code switched; 4) the BE subjects attended an integrated school and therefore more likely use some SE; 5) some phonological processes may not occur in Portland's BE dialect.The CAPP (Hodson, 1985) did not identify any of the BE speakers in this study as having a phonological disorder. Even though they used eight phonological processes more frequently than SE speakers, these processes were not used frequently enough to be targeted 3 for phonological intervention. This would indicate that the APP-R is an appropriate assessment to use with older BE speaking children in Portland, Oregon because with this test their dialectal differences are not frequent enough to warrant the label of disordered or delayep.

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“…Similarly, the results with final consonants and race would seem to rest heavily upon a characteristic of southern, and especially black, dialect which is particularly evident in the early years of speech development, i.e. the omission of final consonants (Labov 1969, Drennon and Hansen 1970, Adler 1971. The articulation results with sex would seem to suggest some early superiority in this skill on the part of girls.…”

Section: 'Since Speech Is a Distinctively Human Characteristic When mentioning

confidence: 88%

Visual Evoked Responses at Birth, Verbal Scores at Three Years, and IQ at Four Years

Engel

Fay

1972

Develop Med Child Neuro

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SUMMARY In an attempt to determine whether neonatal evoked response measurements are predictive of subsequent verbal and intellectual abilities, a study was made of the relationship between visual evoked response at birth, three measures of speech and language at three years, and Stanford‐Binet scores at four years. Results from 828 children showed that articulation of initial and final consonants at three years was significantly greater in the children who had shown shorter latencies of evoked potentials in the neonatal period. No significant correlation was found between neonatal evoked response latency, the measure of verbal comprehension at three years, and iq scores at four years. These findings offer further support for use of the neonatal visual evoked response as a predictor of subsequent motor development, but not of symbolic or intellectual development. RÉSUMÉ Réponses visuelles évoquées à la naissance, scores verbaux à 3 ans et QI à 4 ans Dans le but de déterminer si les mesures de réponses évoquées néo‐natales permettent de prévoir les aptitudes ultérieures de langage et & intelligence il a étéétabli une étude portant sur la relation entre la réponse visuelle évoquée à la naissance, trois mesures différentes du langage et de l'expression verbale à trois ans et du niveau au Stanford‐Binet à quatre ans. Les résultats montrent que l'articulation des consonnes initiales et finales à trois ans est significativement meilleure chez les enfants ayant montré de plus brèves latences de potentiel évoqué durant la période néo‐natale. Aucune corrélation significative n'a été notée entre la latence des réponses évoquées à la naissance, la mesure de la compréhension verbale à trois ans et le QI à quatre ans. Ces éléments renforcent I'intérêt de l'usage des réponses visuelles évoquées à la naissance pour préduire le développement moteur ultérieur mais non pour le développement sym‐bolique ou intellectuel. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Visuell evozierte Potentiale bei der Geburt, Sprachtests im Alter von 3 Jahren und IQ‐Bestimmungen im Alter von 4 Jahren Die Frage, ob Latenzzeitbestimmungen evozierter Potentiale nach Lichtreiz etwas über die spätere Entwicklung aussagen, wurde an 828 Neugeborenen untersucht, die im Alter von drei Jahren eine eingehende Sprachprüfung erhielten, und an 1046 Kindern, die mit vier Jahren ihre Stanford‐Binet‐Intelligenz prüfung hatten. Es zeigte sich, dass die korrekte Aussprache von Anfangs‐ und Endkonsonanten signifikant besser war in der Gruppe von Kindern, die als Neugeborene die kürzeren Latenzzeiten hatten. Sprachverständnis und Ausfall der Intelligenzprüfung dagegen waren durch die elektroencephalographischen Messungen nicht vorraussagbar. RESUMEN Respuestas visuales evocadas en el nacimiento, puntaje verbal a los tres años y C.I. a 10s 4 años En un intento de determinar si las medidas de la respuesta evocada neonatal pueden ser predictivas de subsiguientes capacidades verbal e intelectual, se realizó un estudio de la relación entre la respues ta visual evocada al nacer, 3 mediciones de locució...

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Dialectal Differences: Professional and Clinical Implications

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

The Challenge of Language Assessment for African American English-Speaking Children: A Historical Perspective

The Challenge of Language Assessment for African American English-Speaking Children: A Historical Perspective

Types of phonological processes occurring in normal Black English speakers

Visual Evoked Responses at Birth, Verbal Scores at Three Years, and IQ at Four Years

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