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

Abstract

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...

Dialect Identification versus Evaluation of Risk in Language Screening

“…As Figure 3 shows, the noncontrastive features distinguish the typically developing from languageimpaired children, but they are an even better diagnostic for MAE background children than for children who speak with strong difference from MAE (Figure 4). This is consistent with the observation made by Seymour 11 in the introduction to this issue that normal AAE features can appear similar to patterns of language disorder in MAE speakers. The linguistic pattern of an African American child (or a child from another racial or ethnic background) who has a language disorder and comes from a home and community where MAE is the dominant dialectal pattern will mimic those of an AAE speaker.…”

Seeking a Valid Gold Standard for an Innovative, Dialect-Neutral Language Test

“…The composite picture painted by the DELV-NR and the LS profiles included restricted vocabulary, lower than average sentence complexity, and ineffective pragmatics-that is, difficulties generating cohesive narratives or poor understanding of the listener's needs. Seymour (2004) suggested that using a combination of noncontrastive morphosyntax (e.g., past tense copula, which is not optional in AAE, as found in Part 2 of the DELV-ST) and other linguistic structures was effective for diagnosis of CLD AAEfirst learners. The DELV-NR added information about comprehension of long-distance movement in complex sentences, articles, question asking, and fast mapping, among other constructions.…”

“…Taylor (1969) was among the first to articulate this view within the field of communication disorders, and it was subsequently highlighted in a special issue of Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools (Taylor, 1972) on "Language and the Black Urban Child." This perspective has been kept in the forefront by researcher-activists such as Craig and Washington (2006), Seymour (2004;Seymour, Bland, & Green, 1998;Seymour & Seymour, 1979), and Stockman (1986Stockman ( , 1996Stockman ( , 2010, among many others. The caution has been reiterated in strong position statements from the American Speech-LanguageHearing Association (1983,2003), which reaffirm that differences based on cultural dialects are not to be considered a basis for referral to speech or language services.…”

A Noncontrastive Model for Assessment of Phonology

“…The contrastive/noncontrastive model 1 described in Seymour 2 was applied in the development of a dialect-sensitive phonology assessment. As with other domains of language, contrastive refers to phonological features that differ (contrast) between African American English (AAE) and Mainstream American English (MAE).…”