Socioeconomic status and gender influences on children's dialectal variations

The Growth of Complex Syntax in School-Age African American Children Who Speak African American English

PURPOSE

Syntax provides critical support for both academic success and linguistic growth, yet it has not been a focus of language research in school-age African American children. This study examines complex syntax performance of African American children in second through fifth grades.

METHOD

The current study explores the syntactic performances of African American children (N = 513) in Grades 2-5 on the Test of Language Development-Intermediate who speak African American English. Multilevel modeling was used to evaluate the growth and associated changes between dialect density and syntax. Analyzed data were compared both to the normative sample and within the recruited sample.

RESULTS

The results suggest that dialect density exerted its impact early but did not continue to influence syntactic growth over time. Additionally, it was not until dialect density was accounted for in growth models that African American children's syntactic growth resembled normative expectations of a standardized language instrument.

CONCLUSION

The current study suggests that failure to consider cultural language differences obscures our understanding of African American students' linguistic competence on standardized language assessments.

An examination of 3rd and 5th grade students' use of dialect specific forms during a written editing task

PURPOSE

The goal of the current study was to examine the role of variety and frequency of dialectal features in relation to General American English (GAE) editing ability. This study focused on speakers of dialect-specific forms and their ability to edit to GAE. To gain insight into this relation, the following research questions were posed: (1). How do third and fifth-grade students differ in the variety of features of dialect-specific forms they use, the frequency of their use, and their editing ability to GAE? (2). Is there a significant relation between dialect use and editing ability?

METHODS

Participants included 68 third and fifth-grade students who produced at least one dialect-specific form. We measured students' ability to edit to GAE during a written editing task. Frequency and variety of dialect use were based on an oral language sample where students were asked to share their favorite game or sport.

RESULTS

Fifth-grade students are significantly better at editing written dialect specific forms to reflect GAE writing conventions as compared to third-grade students. However, there was not a significant difference in the dialect specific form usage between the two grades. Finally, there was not a significant relation between dialect specific form use and editing ability.

CONCLUSIONS

These results offer relevant clinical and educational implications for increasing cultural responsivity and promote the use of multiple measures across modalities to gain relevant information when assessing students who use dialect specific forms. Further, the results from this study provide further insights into how written editing ability exhibited through the awareness of GAE conventions improves with age despite the influence of dialect specific forms.

Volume and Verve: Understanding Correction/Behavioral Warnings in Teacher-Child Classroom Interactions Involving an African American Kindergarten Student

Purpose Using a framework of culturally and linguistically responsive classroom management, this study employed both quantitative and qualitative analyses of ethnographic data to illustrate patterns of corrections/behavioral warnings in teacher-child interactions for an African American child in the classroom. Method Three child participants and their teacher were recruited for the study: MJ, an African American kindergartner, the focal child, and two same-sex Filipino classmates who spoke a nonmainstream dialect of English, Ben and Leo, for frame of reference. None of the three boys were diagnosed with language-learning difficulties. Data analyses included (a) categorical analyses of observational field notes taken across a 7-week period of classroom observation and (b) situated discourse analysis taken from video-recorded small group literacy lessons also in the classroom. Results Two key findings emerged. First, MJ, the focal participant, received a relatively high frequency of correction/behavioral warnings, both relative to the other forms of teacher-initiated interaction and also relative to his two classmates. Second, the majority of MJ's corrections/behavioral warnings were directed toward his volume and verve-features that have been associated with the communication style of many African American students. Conclusions We need to include teachers and administrators in our discussions about the communication style of African American students and broaden these discussions to explicitly consider the influence of nonverbal features, such as volume and verve, on patterns of teacher-student communication interactions. In particular, such communication features may be contributing to high-stakes outcomes for African American children, such as referrals, diagnoses, educational placements, and disciplinary actions.

Production of Morphosyntax Within and Across Different Dialects of American English

Purpose This study examined the production of morphosyntactic markers by school-age children with and without developmental language disorder. Comparisons were made between students who speak mainstream American English (MAE) dialects and nonmainstream American English (NMAE) dialects. Method First- and second-grade students (N = 82) completed assessments of dialect use and language ability, which are designed for students who speak NMAE dialects. Students also completed an experimental production task targeting three morphosyntactic features: past tense -ed marking, third-person singular -s marking, and plural -s marking. Past tense marking and third-person singular are produced differently across MAE and NMAE dialects, whereas plural marking is produced more similarly across dialects. Results When comparing across dialects, children with typical language skills who spoke NMAE dialects overtly marked past tense and third-person singular less often compared to MAE peers. However, when comparing to same-dialect peers with language disorders, children with typical language skills who spoke NMAE dialects overtly marked these morphosyntactic markers more often than peers with developmental language disorder. Conclusion The results underscore the importance of considering a child's dialect use when assessing language ability, in particular with measures that include features that are variable in NMAE dialects. At the same time, within-dialect comparisons suggest that a broader set of morphosyntactic features may provide useful information for evaluations of language ability. Future research should investigate the source of these differences, including the extent to which students with language disorders have acquired the social and linguistic factors that condition the use of variable features.

Survey of assessment and intervention practices for students who speak African American English

Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) working with students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are encouraged to be "familiar with nondiscriminatory testing and dynamic assessment procedures" (ASHA, 2003). Little is known, however, about the extent to which SLPs implement these methods into their clinical practice. The current study explores the assessment and intervention practices used by SLPs in two states in the US for students who speak African American English (AAE), including the types and frequency of clinical practices. 247 SLPs completed an online survey regarding clinical practices for students who speak AAE as well as a questionnaire regarding their knowledge of the linguistic features of AAE. Half of SLPs reported using modified or alternative assessment practices the majority of the time or some of the time for students who speak AAE; however, SLPs reported using modified or alternative treatment practices less often. Modified scoring of standardized assessments and selecting different intervention strategies were the most commonly reported clinical practices. Knowledge of linguistic features of AAE was a significant predictor of the frequency with which SLPs report implementing modified or alternative assessment and intervention practices and SLPs with the highest levels of knowledge of AAE utilize different clinical practices than those with lower levels of knowledge of AAE. Additional information is needed about the most effective clinical practices for students who speak AAE and the barriers SLPs face to implementing nondiscriminatory clinical practices.

Developmental sociolinguistics: Children's acquisition of language variation

Developmental sociolinguistics is a rapidly evolving interdisciplinary framework that builds upon theoretical and methodological contributions from multiple disciplines (i.e., sociolinguistics, language acquisition, the speech sciences, developmental psychology, and psycholinguistics). A core assumption of this framework is that language is by its very nature variable, and that much of this variability is informative, as it is (probabilistically) governed by a variety of factors-including linguistic context, social or cultural context, the relationship between speaker and addressee, a language user's geographic origin, and a language user's gender identity. It is becoming increasingly clear that consideration of these factors is absolutely essential to developing realistic and ecologically valid models of language development. Given the central importance of language in our social world, a more complete understanding of early social development will also require a deeper understanding of when and how language variation influences children's social inferences and behavior. As the cross-pollination between formerly disparate fields continues, we anticipate a paradigm shift in the way many language researchers conceptualize the challenge of early acquisition. This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Linguistic Theory Linguistics > Language Acquisition Neuroscience > Development Psychology > Language.

Gender Differences in the Narrative Productions of African American Adults

Purpose The narrative is an important component of cognitive-linguistic assessment of nonmainstream populations and provides a valuable basis on which to conduct cross-ethnic/cultural comparisons. Given that there is limited information on the narrative characteristics of African American adults, this study was designed to describe the nature of narrative productions among African American men and women and to determine if gender differences exist in those productions. Method Seventy-six African American adults-40 women (ages 46-86 years) and 36 men (ages 45-87 years)-recruited from Washington, DC, and the Metropolitan area took part in the study. Participants produced a complex story retelling and a personal narrative of their choosing. All narratives were transcribed orthographically, parsed into T-units, and analyzed for narrative superstructure. Narratives were then examined by establishing the quantity of information, distribution of information, and African American English (AAE) density and usage. Results The results of the study demonstrated that women produced more information across all measures of quantity and narrative conditions. Gender differences were observed where men produced narratives that were brief and succinct whereas women produced longer, more elaborative narratives. Moreover, women produced more information across constituent units of the narratives. Although the use of AAE and its effect on quantity and distribution of information were negligible, the results demonstrated that men produced more occurrences of AAE than women. Conclusions This study demonstrated that women were more talkative, produced more information, took more time to produce their narratives, and told stories that were more descriptive, evaluative, and reflective than those of their male counterparts. This study also suggests that personal narratives may be more robust in characterizing the process of African American adult narrative production whereas story retelling may be a good contrastive element in further describing narrativization. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7905377.

A Prekindergarten Curriculum Supplement for Enhancing Mainstream American English Knowledge in Nonmainstream American English Speakers

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a curriculum supplement designed to enhance awareness of Mainstream American English (MAE) in African American English- (AAE-) speaking prekindergarten children.

METHOD

Children in 2 Head Start classrooms participated in the study. The experimental classroom received the Talking and Learning for Kindergarten program (Edwards, Rosin, Gross, & Chen, 2013), which used contrastive analysis to highlight morphological, phonological, and pragmatic differences between MAE and AAE. The control classroom received the Kindness Curriculum (Flook, Goldberg, Pinger, & Davidson, 2014), which was designed to promote mindfulness and emotional self-regulation. The amount of instruction was the same across the 2 programs. Both classrooms participated in pre- and posttest assessments.

RESULTS

Children in the experimental classroom, but not the control classroom, showed significant improvement in 3 norm-referenced measures of phonological awareness and in an experimental measure that evaluated comprehension of words that are ambiguous in AAE, but unambiguous in MAE, because of morphological and phonological differences between the 2 dialects.

CONCLUSION

Although more research needs to be done on the efficacy of the Talking and Learning for Kindergarten program, these results suggest that it is possible to enhance AAE-speaking children's awareness of MAE prior to kindergarten entry.

Language Variation and Theory of Mind in Typical Development: An Exploratory Study of School-Age African American Narrators

PURPOSE

The intent of this study was to explore the relation between language variation and theory of mind (ToM) in African American child narrators.

METHOD

Fifty children produced a narrative on the basis of the wordless book, Frog, Where Are You? ToM was assessed by children's internal-state words and false-belief mentioning in the book's narratives as well as their performance on the Reading the Eyes in the Mind Test (Baron-Cohen, Joliffe, Mortimore, & Robertson, 1997). Correlation and linear regression analyses were performed to determine the relationship between narrative language ability and ToM indices. Relationships between language variation, ToM indices, and socioeconomic status were also explored.

RESULTS

There was no correlation between language variation and the 3 ToM indicators. False-belief mentioning accounted for the most variance in children's narrative language. Language variation scores and ToM performance were both unrelated to children's socioeconomic backgrounds.

CONCLUSION

ToM indicators, such as false-belief mentioning, provide information about African American children's narrative ability and appear to be dialect-neutral.

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

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.

Neighborhood effects on use of African-American Vernacular English

African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is systematic, rooted in history, and important as an identity marker and expressive resource for its speakers. In these respects, it resembles other vernacular or nonstandard varieties, like Cockney or Appalachian English. But like them, AAVE can trigger discrimination in the workplace, housing market, and schools. Understanding what shapes the relative use of AAVE vs. Standard American English (SAE) is important for policy and scientific reasons. This work presents, to our knowledge, the first experimental estimates of the effects of moving into lower-poverty neighborhoods on AAVE use. We use data on non-Hispanic African-American youth (n = 629) from a large-scale, randomized residential mobility experiment called Moving to Opportunity (MTO), which enrolled a sample of mostly minority families originally living in distressed public housing. Audio recordings of the youth were transcribed and coded for the use of five grammatical and five phonological AAVE features to construct a measure of the proportion of possible instances, or tokens, in which speakers use AAVE rather than SAE speech features. Random assignment to receive a housing voucher to move into a lower-poverty area (the intention-to-treat effect) led youth to live in neighborhoods (census tracts) with an 11 percentage point lower poverty rate on average over the next 10-15 y and reduced the share of AAVE tokens by ∼3 percentage points compared with the MTO control group youth. The MTO effect on AAVE use equals approximately half of the difference in AAVE frequency observed between youth whose parents have a high school diploma and those whose parents do not.

Impact of dialect use on a basic component of learning to read

Can some black-white differences in reading achievement be traced to differences in language background? Many African American children speak a dialect that differs from the mainstream dialect emphasized in school. We examined how use of alternative dialects affects decoding, an important component of early reading and marker of reading development. Behavioral data show that use of the alternative pronunciations of words in different dialects affects reading aloud in developing readers, with larger effects for children who use more African American English (AAE). Mechanisms underlying this effect were explored with a computational model, investigating factors affecting reading acquisition. The results indicate that the achievement gap may be due in part to differences in task complexity: children whose home and school dialects differ are at greater risk for reading difficulties because tasks such as learning to decode are more complex for them.

Narrative performance of gifted African American school-aged children from low-income backgrounds

PURPOSE

This study investigated classroom differences in the narrative performance of school-age African American English (AAE)-speaking children in gifted and general education classrooms.

METHOD

Forty-three children, Grades 2-5, each generated fictional narratives in response to the book Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969). Differences in performance on traditional narrative measures (total number of communication units [C-units], number of different words, and mean length of utterance in words) and on AAE production (dialect density measure) between children in gifted and general education classrooms were examined.

RESULTS

There were no classroom-based differences in total number of C-units, number of different words, and mean length of utterance in words. Children in gifted education classrooms produced narratives with lower dialect density than did children in general educated classrooms. Direct logistic regression assessed whether narrative dialect density measure scores offered additional information about giftedness beyond scores on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Fourth Edition (Dunn & Dunn, 2007), a standard measure of language ability. Results indicated that a model with only Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Fourth Edition scores best discriminated children in the 2 classrooms.

CONCLUSION

African American children across gifted and general education classrooms produce fictional narratives of similar length, lexical diversity, and syntax complexity. However, African American children in gifted education classrooms may produce lower rates of AAE and perform better on standard measures of vocabulary than those in general education classrooms.

Zero Marking of Past Tense in Child African American English

Zero marking of the simple past is often listed as a common feature of child African American English (AAE). In the current paper, we review the literature and present new data to help clinicians better understand zero marking of the simple past in child AAE. Specifically, we provide information to support the following statements: (a) By six years of age, the simple past is infrequently zero marked by typically developing AAE-speaking children; (b) There are important differences between the simple past and participle morphemes that affect AAE-speaking children's marking options; and (c) In addition to a verb's grammatical function, its phonetic properties help determine whether an AAE-speaking child will produce a zero marked form.

Toward validation of a minimal competence core of morphosyntax for African American children

PURPOSE

The authors set out to determine (a) whether African American children's spontaneous spoken language met use criteria for a revised minimal competence core with original and added morphosyntactic patterns at different geographical locations, and (b) whether pass/fail status on this core was differentiated on other criterion measures of language maturity.

METHOD

The authors used a common set of activities and stimuli to elicit spontaneous speech samples from Head Start students, age 3;0 (years; months). The 119 participants were distributed at a northern (Lansing, MI) and a southern (Baton Rouge, LA) location.

RESULTS

More than 80% of the children at each location met criteria for 10 core competencies. They included sentence length, type, complexity, and morphosyntactic elaborations of sentences at the lexical, phrasal, and clausal levels. The 2 most significant predictors of pass/fail outcomes in a regression analysis were (a) clinical referral status and (b) the number of different words (NDW(100)) spoken in a speech sample.

CONCLUSION

A minimal competence core analyses of spontaneous oral language samples may help to identify delayed spoken grammars in African American children.

Influences of social and style variables on adult usage of African American English features

PURPOSE

In this study, the authors examined the influences of selected social (gender, employment status, educational achievement level) and style variables (race of examiner, interview topic) on the production of African American English (AAE) by adults.

METHOD

Participants were 50 African American men and women, ages 20-30 years. The authors used Rapid and Anonymous Survey (RAS) methods to collect responses to questions on informal situational and formal message-oriented topics in a short interview with an unacquainted interlocutor.

RESULTS

Results revealed strong systematic effects for academic achievement, but not gender or employment status. Most features were used less frequently by participants with higher educational levels, but sharp declines in the usage of 5 specific features distinguished the participants differing in educational achievement. Strong systematic style effects were found for the 2 types of questions, but not race of addressee. The features that were most commonly used across participants-copula absence, variable subject-verb agreement, and appositive pronouns-were also the features that showed the greatest style shifting.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings lay a foundation with mature speakers for rate-based and feature inventory methods recently shown to be informative for the study of child AAE and demonstrate the benefits of the RAS.

Metalinguistics, stress accuracy, and word reading: does dialect matter?

PURPOSE

The authors examined the influence of demographic variables on nonmainstream American English (NMAE) use; the differences between NMAE speakers and mainstream American English (MAE) speakers on measures of metalinguistics, single-word reading, and a new measure of morphophonology; and the differences between the 2 groups in the relationships among the measures.

METHOD

Participants were typically developing 3rd graders from Memphis, TN, including 21 MAE and 21 NMAE speakers. Children received a battery of tests measuring phonological and morphological awareness (PA and MA), morphophonology (i.e., accurately produced lexical stress in derived words), decoding, and word identification (WID).

RESULTS

Controlling for socioeconomic status, measures of PA, decoding, and WID were higher for MAE than for NMAE speakers. There was no difference in stress accuracy between the dialect groups. Only for the NMAE group were PA and MA significantly related to decoding and WID. Stress accuracy was correlated with word reading for the NMAE speakers and with all measures for the MAE speakers.

CONCLUSION

Stress accuracy was consistently related to reading measures, even when PA and MA were not. Morphophonology involving suprasegmental factors may be an area of convergence between language varieties because of its consistent relationship to word reading.

Dialect-Neutral Indices of Narrative Cohesion and Evaluation

Purpose

This study compared the development of essential elements of narrative skill in children from African American English (AAE)- and general American English (GAE)-speaking communities using an innovative elicitation and evaluation protocol consisting of four key indices of narrative language: (a) reference contrasting, (b) temporal expressions, (c) mental state descriptions, and (d) understanding of behavior based on false belief.

Method

Participants were 291 AAE speakers and 238 GAE speakers, 4 to 9 years of age. Approximately one-third of both dialect groups were identified as having language impairments. Children generated 2 stories based on short picture sequences. Their stories were coded for the 4 key indices of narrative language. Analyses of variance were performed with subsets of the measures and a composite index with all measures combined as outcomes; and with age, dialect group, and clinical status as predictors.

Results

Age and clinical status had statistically significant effects on the subset measures and the composite score. Variation between AAE and GAE dialect was not a significant factor.

Conclusion

By focusing on dialect-neutral elements of narratives—creating links across sentences and providing mental state interpretations—this study adds to our knowledge of development and impairment in narrative production among both AAE- and GAE-background children.

Changing nonmainstream American English use and early reading achievement from kindergarten to first grade

PURPOSE

This study had 2 principal aims: (a) to examine whether children who spoke Nonmainstream American English (NMAE) frequently in school at the end of kindergarten increased their production of Mainstream American English (MAE) forms by the end of first grade, and (b) to examine concurrent and predictive relations between children's NMAE use and reading skills.

METHOD

A longitudinal design was implemented with 49 children who varied in their spoken NMAE production in kindergarten. Word reading, phonological awareness, and receptive vocabulary skills were measured at both time points.

RESULTS

Analyses indicated that most children significantly increased their production of MAE forms between the 2 time points; however, this change was not associated with change in letter-word reading and phonological awareness skills. Regression analyses showed that NMAE use in kindergarten contributed significantly and independently to the variance in word reading in first grade, even after accounting for phonological awareness (although word reading in kindergarten was the best predictor of word reading in first grade).

CONCLUSIONS

The findings extend previous reports of a significant relation between NMAE use and reading among young children. Theoretical, research, and educational implications of the findings are discussed.

Dialect variation and reading: is change in nonmainstream American English use related to reading achievement in first and second grades?

PURPOSE

In this study, we examined (a) whether children who spoke Nonmainstream American English (NMAE) frequently in school at the beginning of 1st grade increased their use of Mainstream American English (MAE) through the end of 2nd grade, and whether increasing MAE use was associated with (b) language and reading skills and school context and (c) greater gains in reading skills.

METHOD

A longitudinal design was implemented with 49 children who spoke NMAE moderately to strongly. Spoken production of NMAE forms, word reading, and reading comprehension were measured at the beginning, middle, and end of 1st and 2nd grades. Various oral language skills were also measured at the beginning of 1st grade.

RESULTS

Results indicate that most children increased their MAE production during 1st grade and maintained these levels in 2nd grade. Increasing MAE use was predicted by children's expressive vocabulary and nonword repetition skills at the beginning of 1st grade. Finally, the more children increased their MAE production, the greater were their reading gains from 1st grade through 2nd grade.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings extend previous reports of a significant association between NMAE use and specific reading skills among young children and have implications for theory, educational practice, and future research.

A Comparison of Oral and Written English Styles in African American Students at Different Stages of Writing Development

Purpose

The purpose of this investigation was to compare the rates of using African American English (AAE) grammatical features in spoken and written language at different points in literacy development. Based on Kroll’s model (1981), a high degree of similarity in use between the modalities was expected at Grade 3, and lower similarity was expected at Grade 8.

Method

Spoken and written language samples were analyzed for the occurrence of 6 AAE morphosyntactic features. Fifteen third graders and 15 eighth graders were asked to respond to interview questions and to retell stories in both modalities. Percentage use of the AAE grammatical features and a dialectal density measure were used to measure rates of AAE occurrence.

Results

Findings indicated comparable use of dialect in spoken and written modalities for 3 rd graders, but a difference in use between the modalities for 8 th graders. The 8 th graders used more dialectal features in speaking than writing.

Conclusion

These results suggest that there is likely a period in writing development when speakers of AAE learn to dialect switch in their writing.

Index of productive syntax for children who speak African American English

PURPOSE

The validity of the Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn; Scarborough, 1990) for children who speak African American English (AAE) was evaluated by conducting an item analysis and a comparison of the children's scores as a function of their maternal education level, nonmainstream dialect density, age, and clinical status.

METHOD

The data were language samples from 62 children; 52 of the children were between the ages of 4 and 6 years and were classified as developing typically, and 10 were 6 years old with specific language impairment (SLI).

RESULTS

All IPSyn items were produced by at least 1 child, and 88% of the items were produced by 50% or more of the children. The children's IPSyn scores were unrelated to maternal education level and dialect density and were visually comparable to IPSyn scores reported for children who speak mainstream English. Nevertheless, IPSyn could not be used to detect differences between the 4- to 6-year-olds based on age, nor could it be used to detect differences between the 6-year-olds with and without SLI.

CONCLUSION

IPSyn is a valid measure for AAE speakers, but it can be insensitive to age and clinical differences between children who are over the age of 48 months.

Examining relationships among dialect variation, literacy skills, and school context in first grade

PURPOSE

This study examined relationships between the use of nonmainstream American English dialects, literacy skills, and school environment among typically developing first graders (n = 617), of whom 48% were African American and 52% were White, in order to describe and better understand the difficulties many children from linguistically diverse backgrounds experience while learning to read.

METHOD

Using hierarchical linear modeling, the authors examined the linear and quadratic relationships between students' dialect variation (DVAR) and their vocabulary, phonological awareness, and word reading skills, taking into account school environment, specifically schoolwide socioeconomic status (SES).

RESULTS

The relationships between DVAR and literacy outcomes depended on the outcome of interest and school SES. However, children's race did not generally affect the trajectory or strength of the relationships between outcomes and dialect variation. For vocabulary and word reading, the association was nonlinear, that is, U-shaped, but this depended on school SES. For phonological awareness, a negative linear relationship was observed that did not depend on school SES.

CONCLUSIONS

The results inform theories on the relationship between DVAR and literacy achievement and suggest a more complex explanation of how nonmainstream American English dialect use might influence how young children learn to read.

Examining relationships among dialect variation, literacy skills, and school context in first grade

PURPOSE

This study examined relationships between the use of nonmainstream American English dialects, literacy skills, and school environment among typically developing first graders (n = 617), of whom 48% were African American and 52% were White, in order to describe and better understand the difficulties many children from linguistically diverse backgrounds experience while learning to read.

METHOD

Using hierarchical linear modeling, the authors examined the linear and quadratic relationships between students' dialect variation (DVAR) and their vocabulary, phonological awareness, and word reading skills, taking into account school environment, specifically schoolwide socioeconomic status (SES).

RESULTS

The relationships between DVAR and literacy outcomes depended on the outcome of interest and school SES. However, children's race did not generally affect the trajectory or strength of the relationships between outcomes and dialect variation. For vocabulary and word reading, the association was nonlinear, that is, U-shaped, but this depended on school SES. For phonological awareness, a negative linear relationship was observed that did not depend on school SES.

CONCLUSIONS

The results inform theories on the relationship between DVAR and literacy achievement and suggest a more complex explanation of how nonmainstream American English dialect use might influence how young children learn to read.

A Review of Developmental and Applied Language Research on African American Children: From a Deficit to Difference Perspective on Dialect Differences

Purpose

The contemporary practices of delivering speech, language, and hearing services in schools reflect palpable gains in professional sensitivity to linguistic and cultural diversity.

Method

This article reviews the dominant research themes on the oral language of African American preschoolers who contribute to such diversity in the United States. Specifically, it contrasts the historical and current frameworks that have guided studies of (a) such children’s acquisition and use of English and (b) the strategies used to assess and modify their language.

Conclusion

Research initiatives that can expand knowledge about this group are proposed.

Morphological Awareness Skills of Fourth-Grade African American Students

Purpose

We examined the morphological awareness skills of fourth-grade African American children and the association between degree of African American English (AAE) use and performance on written measures of morphological awareness. Additional purposes were to determine whether performance on the morphological awareness tasks (a) was affected by the transparency of morphologically related words and the type of task administered, (b) was associated with other literacy and literacy-related skills, and (c) explained unique variance on these latter abilities.

Method

Thirty fourth-grade African American children from low-income backgrounds were administered 2 morphological awareness tasks and completed norm-referenced measures of word-level reading, reading comprehension, spelling, phonemic awareness, and receptive vocabulary.

Results

The degree of AAE use was not associated with students' performance on the morphological awareness tasks. On these tasks, significantly higher scores were obtained on items that represented a transparent relationship between a base word and its derived form. The students' performance on the morphological awareness tasks was significantly and moderately related to their performance on the word-level reading, spelling, and receptive vocabulary measures. Morphological awareness scores explained significant unique variance on measures of word-level reading and spelling, above that predicted by performance on measures of phonemic awareness and vocabulary.

Conclusion

As shown in previous investigations of Caucasian children’s morphological awareness skills, fourth-grade African American students' morphological awareness abilities are associated with select language and literacy skills. Professionals should capitalize on students' intact capabilities in morphological awareness during literacy instruction in an effort to maximize language and literacy performance for African American students.

Toward validation of a minimal competence phonetic core for african american children

PURPOSE

This study aimed to show (a) whether the minimal competence core (MCC) of consonants used by African American preschoolers in I. Stockman (2006) can be observed in a larger group of children using shorter and more controlled speech samples and (b) whether the MCC pass/fail outcomes are differentially related to performance on selected criterion measures of typical and atypical speech.

METHOD

Word-initial single and clustered consonants were sampled in the conversational speech of 120 Head Start students who were distributed in a northern (Lansing, Michigan) and a southern (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) regional location.

RESULTS

The data generally corroborated the earlier preliminary report, which was based on just 7 children. More than 80% of the children met criteria for passing the core set of phonetic competencies, which included word-initial consonant clusters and 13 consonant singletons. Pass/fail outcomes were significantly related to suspected clinical delay and the overall Percentage of Consonants Correct-Revised (PCC-R).

CONCLUSION

The initial consonant core identified in this study is potentially useful for identifying speech delay among young African American children. Clinical and research issues related to its use for diagnostic screening are discussed.

Oral language expectations for African American children in grades 1 through 5

Reference profiles for characterizing the language abilities of elementary-grade African American students are important for assessment and instructional planning. H. K. Craig and J. A. Washington (2002) reported performance for 100 typically developing preschoolers and kindergartners on 5 traditional language measures: mean length of communication units, amount of complex syntax production, number of different spoken words, responses to wh-questions, and understanding of active/passive sentence construction. The present study reports performances on the same measures for 295 typically developing African American children in the 1st through 5th grades. Findings revealed increasing performance scores with increasing grades on 4 of the tasks. A ceiling effect was evident on the task that assessed comprehension of active and passive voice. Gender, socioeconomic status, and community influenced the values in systematic ways, and responses to requests for information varied relative to vocabulary skill. These measures are recommended for inclusion in culturally fair assessment protocols designed to characterize the language abilities of elementary-grade African American students.

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

This study examined the production of African-American English (AAE) forms produced by 69 school-aged African-American children from middle socio-economic status (SES) communities to determine if age would influence: (a) the number of different types of AAE tokens and (b) the rate of dialect. Descriptive data revealed that there were more than 20 AAE morpho-syntactic forms collectively used by the children. The findings also indicated that factors of age, gender, and sampling context interacted in a variety of ways to influence these children's production of the number of different types of AAE tokens, and the rate of dialect.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Readers should have (1) an increased awareness about the use of AAE forms in school-age children from middle SES homes; (2) a greater understanding of how the production of AAE might be influenced by age, gender, and sampling context.

A language screening protocol for use with young African American children in urban settings

Language screenings represent an important tool for early identification of language impairments in young children between 3 and 5 years of age. This investigation examined the utility of a well-established set of assessment measures for screening young African American children. One hundred and ninety-six children participated in the screening. Based upon the outcomes of the screening, 25 children who failed and a random sample of 56 children who passed were administered a larger language and cognitive assessment battery. Sensitivity and specificity of the screening were determined to be high. The number of different words, the Kaufman Nonverbal Scale, and nonword repetition accounted for a significant amount of the variance in performance. The screening is brief, valid, and culturally fair for use with preschool- and kindergarten-aged African American children living in urban settings.

Variable production of African American English across oracy and literacy contexts

Many African American students produce African American English (AAE) features that are contrastive to Standard American English (SAE). The AAE-speaking child who is able to dialect shift, that is, to speak SAE across literacy contexts, likely will perform better academically than the student who is not able to dialect shift.

METHOD

This investigation examined the AAE productions of 50 typically developing African American third graders across three language contexts-picture description, oral reading of SAE text, and writing.

RESULTS

All participants produced AAE during picture description. A downward shift in contrastive AAE features was evident between spoken discourse and the literacy contexts. More students produced more AAE features during picture description than writing. Both morphosyntactic and phonological features characterized the picture description context. Phonological features predominated during oral reading. In contrast, morphosyntactic features were the most dominant feature in writing.

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

The findings are discussed in terms of dialect-shifting abilities of African American students and the role of writing as a special context to support their entry into dialect shifting.

Familiarity With School English in African American Children and Its Relation to Early Reading Achievement

For children whose everyday speech differs greatly from the School English (SE) they encounter in academic materials and settings, it was hypothesized that greater familiarity with SE would be associated with more successful early reading acquisition. Sentence imitation and reading skills of 217 urban African American students in kindergarten through second grade (ages 5 to 8 years) were assessed. Children in each grade varied widely in the extent to which their imitations of SE sentences included phonological and grammatical forms that are acceptable in African American Vernacular English but not in SE. Higher familiarity with SE (reproducing SE features more often when imitating) was associated with better reading achievement, and these relationships were independent of memory ability.

Performance of Elementary-Grade African American Students on the Gray Oral Reading Tests

Purpose: African American students perform disproportionately more poorly on standardized reading assessments than their majority peers. Poor reading performances may be related to test biases inherent in standardized reading instruments. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the appropriateness of the Gray Oral Reading Tests-Third Edition (GORT-3; Wiederholt & Bryant, 1992) for assessing the reading abilities of elementary-grade African American students.

Method: Performances of 65 typically developing African American second through fifth graders were examined on the GORT-3.

Results: African American English (AAE) was produced by most students while reading passages from the GORT-3 that were written in Standard American English (SAE). A scoring correction for AAE resulted in a statistical improvement in the performance distributions, but this did not appear to be educationally significant. Measures of total feature production predicted reading accuracy and rate, but not comprehension.

Clinical Implications: Findings are discussed in terms of the appropriateness of this instrument for use by speech-language pathologists as they contribute to curricular and classroom placement decisions in schools with large numbers of typically developing African American students.

Grade-related changes in the production of African American English

This investigation examined grade as a source of systematic variation in the African American English (AAE) produced by students in preschool through fifth grades. Participants were 400 typically developing African American boys and girls residing in low- or middle-income homes in an urban-fringe community or midsize central city in the metropolitan Detroit area. Between preschoolers and kindergartners, and between first through fifth graders, there were no significant differences in the amounts of dialect produced during a picture description language elicitation context. However, there was a significant downward shift in dialect production at first grade. Students who evidenced dialect shifting outperformed their nonshifting peers on standardized tests of reading achievement and vocabulary breadth.

The performance of low-income, African American children on the Preschool Language Scale-3

This study examined the performance of 701 low-income African American preschoolers (36 to 52 months old) on the Preschool Language Scale-3 (PLS-3, I. L. Zimmerman, V. G. Steiner, & R. E. Pond, 1992). On average, African American children performed about 1 SD below the expected means for their ages on both the Expressive Communication and Auditory Comprehension subscales. Independent sample t tests showed no significant differences between African American children and a comparison sample of 50 European American children. Item analysis was used to examine the potentially problematic items of the PLS-3 for each age cohort of children. We found that 6 items appeared to be particularly difficult for the African American sample. The findings suggest that the PLS-3 is generally an informative language test for African American preschoolers; however, scores should be interpreted with caution.

Phonological features of child African American English

The production of phonological features of African American English (AAE) was examined for 64 typically developing African American children in the 2nd through the 5th grade. Students read aloud passages written in Standard American English. Sixty of the students read the passages using AAE, and 8 different phonological features were represented in their readings. Phonological features were more frequent than morphosyntactic features. The findings as a whole support use of the taxonomy developed for this investigation in characterizing the phonological features of child AAE.

Methods for characterizing participants' nonmainstream dialect use in child language research

Three different approaches to the characterization of research participants' nonmainstream dialect use can be found in the literature. They include listener judgment ratings, type-based counts of nonmainstream pattern use, and token-based counts. In this paper, we examined these three approaches, as well as shortcuts to these methods, using language samples from 93 children previously described in J. Oetting and J. McDonald (2001). Nonmainstream dialects represented in the samples included rural Louisiana versions of Southern White English (SWE) and Southern African American English (SAAE). Depending on the method and shortcut used, correct dialect classifications (SWE or SAAE) were made for 88% to 97% of the participants; however, regression algorithms had to be applied to the type- and token-based results to achieve these outcomes. For characterizing the rate at which the participants produced the nonmainstream patterns, the token-based methods were found to be superior to the others, but estimates from all approaches were moderately to highly correlated with each other. When type- and/or token-based methods were used to characterize participants' dialect type and rate, the number of patterns included in the analyses could be substantially reduced without significantly affecting the validity of the outcomes. These findings have important implications for future child language studies that are done within the context of dialect diversity.

Complex syntax production of African American preschoolers

This study examined changes in the complex syntax production of 85 3- and 4-year-old African American children and the role of child (i.e., gender, age, African American English) and family (i.e., home environment) factors. The mean percentage of utterances containing one or more complex syntax forms was 6.2% at 3 years and 11.7% at 4 years. Girls produced more complex syntax forms than did boys. Complex syntax production increased significantly between age 3 and age 4 and correlated positively with mean length of utterance in words. Children from more responsive and stimulating home environments produced more complex syntax at 4 years. African American English was not related to the amount of complex syntax used.

Differentiating dialect from disorder: a comparison of two processing tasks and a standardized language test

Previous research has indicated that norm-referenced language assessment protocols are often biased against dialectal speakers. Recently, the use of processing tasks has emerged as one possible means of reducing this bias in language testing. Processing tasks measure a child's ability to process and manipulate language rather than tap previous linguistic knowledge. The present study utilized 40 subjects between the ages of 7;0 and 7;3 in the following equal groupings: White normal language, White language impaired, African American normal language, African American language impaired. The subjects were administered the Test of Language Development-2P (TOLD-2P), the Nonword Repetition Task (NRT), and the Competing Language Processing Task (CLPT). Results indicated that all three measures differentiated normal-language and language-impaired subjects from one another. With regard to cultural group, confirmed speakers of African American English (AAE) with normal language scored significantly lower on the TOLD-2P compared to White normal-language subjects. Scores of the AAE-speaking subjects with normal language on the NRT and CLPT, however, did not differ significantly from the White normal-language subjects. These results suggest that AAE speakers with normally developing language (LN) may be at a disadvantage on tests of prior language knowledge and that processing tasks may be a useful tool in combination with other assessment measures to make less biased clinical decisions.

EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES

As a result of this activity, the reader will (1) be able to determine the utility of processing tasks in culturally unbiased language assessment. (2) The reader will be able to discriminate the difference between the results of a standardized language test and processing tasks on speakers of AAE.

Nonmainstream dialect use and specific language impairment

Most work looking at specific language impairment (SLI) has been done in the context of mainstream dialects. This paper extends the study of SLI to two nonmainstream dialects: a rural version of Southern African American English (SAAE) and a rural version of Southern White English (SWE). Data were language samples from 93 4- to 6-year-olds who lived in southeastern Louisiana. Forty were classified as speakers of SAAE, and 53 were classified as speakers of SWE. A third were previously diagnosed as SLI; the others served as either age-matched (6N) or language-matched (4N) controls. The two dialects differed in frequency of usage on 14 of the 35 coded morphosyntactic surface patterns; speakers of these dialects could be successfully discriminated (94%) from each other in a discriminant analysis using just four of these patterns. Across dialects, four patterns resulted in main effects that were related to diagnostic condition (SLI vs. 6N), and a slightly different set of four patterns showed effects that were related to developmental processes (4N vs. 6N). More interestingly, the surface characteristics of SLI were found to manifest in the two dialects in different ways. A discriminant function based solely on SAAE speakers tended to misclassify SWE children with SLI as having normal language, and a discriminant function based on SWE speakers tended to misclassify SAAE unaffected children as SLI. Patterns within the SLI profile that cut across the two dialects included difficulties with tense marking and question formation. The results provide important direction for future studies and argue for the inclusion of contrastive as well as noncontrastive features of dialects within SLI research.

An assessment battery for identifying language impairment in African American children

This investigation compares the performances of 24 African American children, diagnosed as language impaired (LI) and receiving school-based language therapy, to 2 groups of typically developing peers (N = 48) on 5 traditional types of language assessment measures. Three of the measures were derived from child-centered free play language sample analyses and included average length of communication units (MLCU), frequencies of complex syntax, and numbers of different words. Two of the measures examined language comprehension and included responses to requests for information in the form of Wh-questions and responses to probes of active and passive sentence constructions. The performances of the group of children with language impairments were significantly lower on each measure than that of chronological age matched African American children who were typically developing. Sensitivity and specificity of the battery appeared excellent. The findings are discussed in terms of the potential of these informal language measures to contribute to a culturally fair assessment protocol for young African American children.

Maternal education and measures of early speech and language

The present study was designed to determine whether 4 measures of children's spontaneous speech and language differed according to the educational level of the children's mothers. Spontaneous language samples from 240 three-year-old children were analyzed to determine mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLUm), number of different words (NDW), total number of words (TNW), and percentage of consonants correct (PCC). A norm-referenced, knowledge-dependent measure of language comprehension, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R), was also included for purposes of comparison with the spontaneous measures. Three levels of maternal education were compared: less than high school graduate, high school graduate, and college graduate. Trend analyses showed statistically significant linear trends across educational levels for MLUm, NDW, TNW, and PPVT-R; the trend for PCC was not significant. The relationship of maternal education and other sociodemographic variables to measures of children's language should be examined before using such measures to identify children with language disorders.

Variable use of African American English across two language sampling context

This investigation compares the impact of two language sampling elicitation contexts, free play and picture description, on variability in the use of African American English (AAE). Subjects were 65 normally-developing African American 4;4- to 6;3-year-old boys and girls from lower socioeconomic status homes. Comparisons of AAE production in the first 50 C units revealed significant differences by context. Picture descriptions elicited more AAE usage overall, a larger set of AAE types, and took less time. Gender differences in the use of AAE tokens were also apparent, with the boys using significantly more tokens than girls in the free play context. The use of AAE types and tokens was comparable for boys and girls in the picture description context. The advantages of language sampling with pictures to determine dialect usage is discussed.