An Assessment Battery for Identifying Language Impairments in African American Children

Craig, Holly K.; Washington, Julie A.

doi:10.1044/jslhr.4302.366

Cited by 97 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…If the child exhibits evidence of dialectal features, a measure such as the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Criterion Referenced (Seymour, Roeper, & de Villiers, 2003b) in conjunction with other language measures may increase diagnostic accuracy in clinical assessments. For example, measures of spontaneous language such as mean length of communication units, use of complex syntax, and number of different words in addition to responses to wh-questions and probes of active and passive sentence constructions were found to have excellent sensitivity and specificity in a study of African American young children with and without LI (Craig & Washington, 2000). The Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Criterion Referenced has a passive sentences subtest, but it is a comprehension task.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is evidence that children with LI demonstrate deficits with passives presumably due to (a) a general difficulty with complex movement operations affecting the passive transformation (Bishop & Butterworth, 1979; van der Lely, 1998), (b) processing limitations that affect nonsalient morphemes such as the past participle inflection -ed, and/or (c) rigid reliance on subjectverb-object word order (Leonard, Wong, Deevy, Stokes, & Fletcher, 2006). Passives were also found to help identify LI in nonmainstream English speakers with high sensitivity and specificity (Craig & Washington, 2000). Complex syntax was considered potentially useful because Latino children with limited language skills have limited syntactic complexity (Gutiérrez-Clellen, 1998;Gutiérrez-Clellen& Hofstetter, 1994 A series of two pilot studies were conducted during the development phase of the E-MST.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Discriminant Accuracy of a Grammatical Measure With Latino English-Speaking Children

Gutiérrez–Clellen

Simón-Cereijido

2007

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose-To evaluate the discriminant accuracy of a grammatical measure for the identification of language impairment (LI) in Latino English-speaking children. Specifically, the study examined the diagnostic accuracy of the Test of English Morphosyntax (E-MST; Peña, Gutiérrez-Clellen, Iglesias, Goldstein, & Bedore (n.d.) to determine (a) whether use and exposure to Spanish had an effect on the performance of bilingual children compared with monolingual Latino children and (b) whether dialectal differences within Latino English speakers might result in performance differences and a greater incidence of misclassifications for children from Caribbean English backgrounds.Method-One hundred and eleven children (i.e., 59 children with typical language development and 52 children with LI) were sampled from the Southwest and Northeast regions of the U.S. Southwestern children were of Mexican origin. Children from the Northeast were from Puerto Rican or Dominican backgrounds. Linear discriminant analyses evaluating group classifications on the basis of the E-MST were performed on exploratory and confirmatory data sets across 3 groups: Southwestern English-only proficient (SW EP) children, Southwestern English-dominant bilingual (SW EDB) children, and Northeastern (NE) children.Results-Results of the exploratory discriminant analyses indicated good sensitivity for the SW EP children. The discriminant functions derived from the exploratory analysis were able to predict group membership in confirmatory discriminant analyses with fair sensitivity and good specificity for the SW EDB children and with fair sensitivity but poor specificity for the NE children. Children who were English-dominant bilingual were not more likely to be misclassified compared with their English-only proficient peers. However, nonmainstream English dialect differences appeared to affect classification accuracy and resulted in a greater number of misclassifications for the NE children with typical language development. Conclusion-The measure seems to be suitable for identifying LI in SW children who are exposed to Spanish and/or who are English-dominant bilingual. Additional assessment tools will be needed to rule out the disorder in children who are exposed to African American or Caribbean English dialects. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptResearch with mainstream English-speaking children has helped advance our understanding of the grammatical characteristics of specific language impairment (SLI) and the potential predictive value of grammatical measures in clinical assessments (for a detailed review, see Leonard, 1998). However, accurate identification of SLI in children from nonmainstream backgrounds may be difficult because these children may score lower than the norms on standardized language tests in spite of having typical language development (TLD; Norris, Juarez, & Perkins, 1989;Peña, Quinn, & Iglesias, 1992; Qi, 2005;Qi, Kaiser, Milan, Yzquierdo, & Hancock, 2003;Restrepo et al., 2006;Washingto...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Discriminant Accuracy of a Grammatical Measure With Latino English-Speaking Children

Gutiérrez–Clellen

Simón-Cereijido

2007

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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“…Like children from African American backgrounds in the United States (Craig & Washington, 2000), children from Indigenous backgrounds in Australia may be misidentified with communication impairments due to the lack of culturally appropriate tools. To date no one has investigated the effect of dialectal difference on the identification of speech impairment in Indigenous Australian children.…”

Section: Indigenous Australiansmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, future research investigating typical acquisition of phonemes for children learning multiple dialects is required to ensure accurate identification of true speech errors and accurate diagnosis of communication impairment. However, a greater understanding of the language socialisation practices of these populations as well as the way in which impairments present is also required (Crago, 1992;Craig & Washington, 2000). Crago (1992: 35) suggests SLPs require 'ethnographic documentation' of language socialisation practices in order to 'become culturally literate and knowledgeable' in their management of children with communication impairment who are not from the majority culture.…”

Section: Dialectal Difference Versus True Speech Errorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of dialect on identification and severity of speech impairment in Indigenous Australian children

Toohill

McLeod

McCormack

2011

Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics

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This study investigated the effect of dialectal difference on identification and rating of severity of speech impairment in children from Indigenous Australian backgrounds. The speech of 15 Indigenous Australian children identified by their parents/caregivers and teachers as having 'difficulty talking and making speech sounds' was assessed using the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology. Fourteen children were identified with speech impairment on the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology using Standard Australian English (AusE) as the target pronunciation; whereas 13 were identified using Australian Aboriginal English (AAE) as the target. There was a statistically significant decrease in seven children's severity classification and a statistically significant increase in all children's percentage of consonants, vowels and phonemes correct when comparing AAE with AusE. Features of AAE used by the children included /h/ insertion and deletion, primary stress on the first syllable and diphthongs alternating with short clear vowels. It is important that speech-language pathologists consider children's dialect as one component of culturally and linguistically appropriate services.

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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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An Assessment Battery for Identifying Language Impairments in African American Children

Cited by 97 publications

References 33 publications

The Discriminant Accuracy of a Grammatical Measure With Latino English-Speaking Children

The Discriminant Accuracy of a Grammatical Measure With Latino English-Speaking Children

Effect of dialect on identification and severity of speech impairment in Indigenous Australian children

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

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