Development of Auxiliaries in Young Children Learning African American English.

Purpose: We examined language samples of young children learning African American English (AAE) to determine if and when their use of auxiliaries shows dialect-universal and dialect-specific effects.

Method: The data were longitudinal language samples obtained from two children, ages 18 to 36 months, and three children, ages 33 to 51 months. Dialect-universal analyses examined age of first form and early uses of BE, DO, and modal auxiliaries.

Comparison of African American Children's Performances on a Minimal Competence Core for Morphosyntax and the Index of Productive Syntax.

Purpose: This study is a response to the need for evidence-based measures of spontaneous oral language to assess African American children under the age of 4 years. We determined if pass/fail status on a minimal competence core for morphosyntax (MCC-MS) was more highly related to scores on the Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn)-the measure of convergent criterion validity-than to scores on 3 measures of divergent validity: number of different words (Watkins, Kelly, Harbers, & Hollis, 1995), Percentage of Consonants Correct-Revised (Shriberg, Austin, Lewis, McSweeney, & Wilson, 1997), and the Leiter International Performance Scale-Revised (Roid & Miller, 1997).

Method: Archival language samples for 68 African American 3-year-olds were analyzed to determine MCC-MS pass/fail status and the scores on measures of convergent and divergent validity.

BE, DO, and modal auxiliaries of 3-year-old African American English speakers.

Purpose: This study examined African American English-speaking children's use of BE, DO, and modal auxiliaries.

Method: The data were based on language samples obtained from 48 three-year-olds. Analyses examined rates of marking by auxiliary type, auxiliary surface form, succeeding element, and syntactic construction and by a number of child variables.

Effect of augmented sensorimotor input on learning verbal and nonverbal tasks among children with autism spectrum disorders.

Thirty-four children, with autism spectrum disorders, ages 4-14 years, were matched and randomly assigned to one of two conditions for learning a novel juice-making task and producing two novel words about the event. Seventeen sighted children were manually guided to perform the task and tactually prompted during imitated productions of novel words for the event. Their matched controls heard the novel words and watched the juice-making task being performed.

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.

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.

Cross-dialectal perceptual experiences of speech-language pathologists in predominantly caucasian American school districts.

Purpose: This study aimed to determine if the number and type of African American English (AAE) features that are spoken in sentences influence speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') judgments of (a) how noticeable the dialect is (dialect detectability) and (b) how understandable a speaker is to others (comprehensibility).

Method: Certified SLPs with little conversational experience with AAE were recruited from predominantly Caucasian American school districts in Michigan. They listened to sentences that contained varying amounts and types of AAE phonological features.

The use of conversational repairs by African American preschoolers.

Purpose: This study aimed to describe the types and frequency of conversational repairs used by African American (AA) children in relationship to their geographic locations and levels of performance on commonly used speech-language measures.

Method: The strategies used to initiate repairs and respond to repair requests were identified in audiovisual records of spontaneous speech sampled from 120 Head Start students in Michigan (n = 69) and Louisiana (n = 51) at 3 years of age. The 30-40-min samples were elicited with common stimuli and activities while the children interacted with an adult examiner.

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.

Multicultural/multilingual instruction in educational programs: a survey of perceived faculty practices and outcomes.

Purpose: To describe the instructional strategies reported for multicultural/multilingual issues (MMI) education at programs in speech-language pathology and audiology and the perceived ease and effectiveness of doing so.

Method: A 49-item questionnaire elicited anonymous responses from administrators, faculty, and teaching clinical supervisors at educational programs accredited by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in the United States. The data were provided by 731 respondents from 79.

Evidence for a minimal competence core of consonant sounds in the speech of African American children: a preliminary study.

Most studies have stressed those aspects of African American English (AAE) that differ from Standard English (SE) varieties. Therefore word-final consonant performance has been investigated most often. In contrast, this intensive study aimed to reveal whether a common core of initial consonants is used by typically developing AAE children at or close to the 3rd birthday.

Alveolar bias in the final consonant deletion patterns of African American children.

Purpose: The variable deletion of word-final consonants is a well-known feature of African American English (AAE). This study aimed to show whether African American children exhibit an alveolar bias in their deletion of final voiceless stops as has been observed for their production of final nasals.

Method: The data were extracted from more than 5000 spontaneous utterances in the speech samples of 7 African American children at 32 to 36 months of age.

Children's story retelling under different modality and task conditions: implications for standardizing language sampling procedures.

This study was motivated by the possibility of standardizing a story-retelling task well enough to function as a brief screener of children's global syntactic features. Specifically, the study determined whether the story presentation modality (i.e.

The New Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III: An Illusion of Unbiased Assessment?

This article examines whether changes in the ethnic minority composition of the standardization sample for the latest edition of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-III, Dunn & Dunn, 1997) can be used as the sole explanation for children's better test scores when compared to an earlier edition, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R, Dunn & Dunn, 1981). Results from a comparative analysis of these two test editions suggest that other factors may explain improved performances. Among these factors are the number of words and age levels sampled, the types of words and pictures used, and characteristics of the standardization sample other than its ethnic minority composition.