It is not just the poor kids: the use of AAE forms by African-American school-aged children from middle SES communities

Horton-Ikard, RaMonda; Miller, Jon F.

doi:10.1016/j.jcomdis.2004.02.001

Cited by 47 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…The average dialect density across the 83 children was .06 and the range was .001 to .28. These values are comparable to other studies that have examined dialect density in conversational speech (e.g., Craig & Washington, 2004; Horton-Ikard & Miller, 2004). Mean dialect density by age is given in Table 1.…”

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 88%

Dialect Awareness and Lexical Comprehension of Mainstream American English in African American English–Speaking Children

Edwards

Gross

Chen

et al. 2014

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose This study was designed to examine the relationships among minority dialect use, language ability, and young AAE-speaking children’s understanding and awareness of MAE. Methods 83 4- to 8-year-old African American English-speaking children participated in two experimental tasks. One task evaluated their awareness of differences between Mainstream American English (MAE) and African American English (AAE), while the other evaluated their lexical comprehension of MAE in contexts that were ambiguous in AAE but unambiguous in MAE. Receptive and expressive vocabulary, receptive syntax, and dialect density were also assessed. Results The results of a series of mixed-effect models showed that children with larger expressive vocabularies performed better on both experimental tasks, relative to children with smaller expressive vocabularies. Dialect density was a significant predictor only of MAE lexical comprehension; children with higher levels of dialect density were less accurate on this task. Conclusions Both vocabulary size and dialect density independently influenced MAE lexical comprehension. The results suggest that children with high levels of non-mainstream dialect use have more difficulty understanding words in MAE, at least in challenging contexts and suggest directions for future research.

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Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 88%

Dialect Awareness and Lexical Comprehension of Mainstream American English in African American English–Speaking Children

Edwards

Gross

Chen

et al. 2014

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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show abstract

“…However, considering that dialect use is contextualized, it is plausible that the relationship between spoken dialect differences and reading achievement may also be mediated, at least in part, by the schooling environment. This effect may reflect the language environment, as more frequent NMAE production is often observed among adults and children living in poverty (Horton-Ikard & Miller, 2004; Labov, 1972; Myhill, 1988; Washington & Craig, 1998). Thus, perhaps children were less likely to dialect-shift in high poverty schools because they were exposed to fewer child and adult models of spoken MAE use both in and out of school.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Dialect variation, dialect-shifting, and reading comprehension in second grade

et al. 2015

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The purpose of this study was to examine second graders’ (n=680) changing spoken nonmainstream American English (NMAE) use in relation to their oral language and reading comprehension achievement. Fall NMAE production was negatively associated with fall achievement scores. NMAE production generally decreased from fall to spring. Students who qualified for the US Free and Reduced Lunch program (FARL) and who had stronger language skills were more likely to decrease their NMAE use (i.e., dialect shifting) than their peers who did not qualify for FARL or their peers with weaker language skills. Dialect shifting for a sub-sample of 102 students who used substantial amounts of NMAE at the beginning of the school year was predicted by school context, controlling for reading and language skills – in general, students who attended more affluent schools dialect shifted to a greater extent than did their peers who attended higher poverty schools. Greater dialect shifting in this group predicted gains in reading comprehension from fall to spring.

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“…A common TKBM, the dialect density measure (DDM), is a calculated ratio whereby the total number of NMAE forms identified in a sample is then divided by the total number of utterances / communication units (DDMu) or the total number of words (DDMw). DDMs seem to capture differences in the quantity of NMAE related to age or grade Horton-Ikard & Ellis Weismer, 2005), sampling contexts (Horton-Ikard & Miller, 2004;Washington, Craig, & Kushmaul, 1998), and even NMAE varieties (Oetting & McDonald, 2002). They also have been used with children from diverse economic backgrounds (Horton-Ikard & Miller, 2004;Washington & Craig, 1994) and across oral and literate contexts (Horton-Ikard & Pittman, 2010;Ivy & Masterson, 2012;Kohler et al, 2007;Thompson et al, 2004).…”

Section: Dialect Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These features were selected because they had been used in previous investigations concerned with African American children's use of NMAE Horton-Ikard & Miller, 2004;Horton-Ikard & Weismer, 2005;Oetting & McDonald, 2001). The same 20% of the samples selected for transcription reliability also were examined for agreement in coding features of NMAE.…”

Section: Nmae Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the Use of Spoken Dialect Indices With African American Children in the Southern United States

Horton

Apel

2014

Am J Speech Lang Pathol

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Newer measures of NMAE, such as the DELV-ST and DVAR scores, are comparable to older measures such as dialect density measures and listener judgment ratings. Like listener judgment ratings, the DELV-ST and DVAR scores offer clinicians and researchers alike a quicker alternative to dialect density measures for confirming and quantifying the spoken production of NMAE dialect. The present findings confirm that, depending on the type of data collected and questions posed, researchers and clinicians alike are able to choose from multiple, valid, and reliable measures of non-mainstream dialect use.

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It is not just the poor kids: the use of AAE forms by African-American school-aged children from middle SES communities

Cited by 47 publications

References 34 publications

Dialect Awareness and Lexical Comprehension of Mainstream American English in African American English–Speaking Children

Dialect Awareness and Lexical Comprehension of Mainstream American English in African American English–Speaking Children

Dialect variation, dialect-shifting, and reading comprehension in second grade

Examining the Use of Spoken Dialect Indices With African American Children in the Southern United States

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