This is the second of two Topics in Language Disorders issues focusing on children learning African American English (AAE) as a first dialect. In the first issue titled, Research With Implications for Assessing the Language of African American English Speakers, contributing authors suggested new pathways for understanding how AAE speakers who are suspected of having a language disorder can be assessed with the least amount of bias so that evidence-based intervention can be provided. The articles in this issue address factors that should be considered when providing speech and language-based treatment for young AAE speakers, and provide some guidelines for choosing intervention targets, as well as guidelines for reading instruction.
Very little literature exists on how to choose appropriate intervention targets for children whose first dialect is AAE, particularly in the area of grammatical morphology. Although language intervention approaches that target grammatical morphemes have by and large been shown to be effective (Camarata, Nelson, & Camarata, 1994; Fey, Cleave, & Long, 1997), very little is known about how children from linguistically diverse groups respond to this type of treatment. Response to intervention in children with specific language impairment whose primary dialect is AAE is of special interest. Some features of this language system may be confused with what is considered impairment in general American English (GAE), the language medium in the schools.
Along a similar vein, young AAE speakers demonstrate a diverse phonological system. Pearson, Velleman, Bryant, and Charko (2009) found that young AAE and GAE-first language learners have different segmental and phonotactic developmental trajectories. These two groups reach established production criteria for some phonemes at different time periods due to the overall phonological structure of each system. The voiced "th" (/
/) is particularly contrastive between the two groups. The typically developing AAE-first language learners produced this phoneme accurately at a significantly later period than the GAE-first speakers. The failure to differentiate grammatical and phonological impairment from typical AAE development not only increases the risk for overidentifying young AAE speakers as language impaired but also complicates the course of treatment for those who have a genuine disorder.
Finally, the distinct "system of sounds, word and sentence structure, meaning and structural organization of vocabulary items" that AAE speakers use (Green, 2002, p. 1) must be considered when instructing young AAE-language first learners for the purpose of written language development. The National Assessment of Educational Progress report indicates that 61% of African American (AA) fourth graders failed to achieve basic reading levels in 2003 compared with 26% of their Caucasian peers (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2003). Although slightly narrower today, this "achievement gap" has persisted since reading progress was first assessed in the 1970s (Rampey, Dion, & Donahue, 2009). A number of possible explanations have been offered for the persistently low reading performance. A common supposition is that AA children may be more vulnerable to problems in early and later literacy achievement because a disproportionate number of them grow up in poverty, a well-established risk factor for early educational problems (Lonigan et al., 1999). However, the high rates of reading failure among low-income AA children cannot be fully explained by poverty since some children from low-income families perform better than average on reading measures (Chall, Jacobs, & Balwin, 1990). This, coupled with the finding that AA children from middle-income backgrounds scored significantly lower on standardized reading measures than their Caucasian peers living in the same neighborhood (Singham, 1998), suggests that factors other than poverty impact reading achievement for these children.
Considering that 6 of the 10 indicators of reading achievement, or lack thereof, relate to language skills (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998), linguistically and culturally diverse children may be more vulnerable to reading disabilities because their home language and discourse practices may not be firmly aligned with the language skills required for academic success in schools in the United States (Harris, 2003). Several articles in this issue provide new information that is intended to help speech-language pathologists and general education classroom teachers provide dialect-sensitive writing instruction using an additive approach that does not subtract from students' first language while they are learning writing conventions that have GAE as a foundation.
In this issue, the first article, by Velleman and Pearson, "Differentiating Speech Sound Disorders From Phonological Dialect Differences: Implications for Assessment and Intervention," shows that children learning GAE-only and children learning AAE first, who had a speech sound disorder, master consonant sounds in different orders by dialect. The authors advise that norms based on GAE-only groups of children are not appropriate for children whose first dialect is not GAE, and suggest that intervention targets for the children be chosen using dialect-specific segmental order and phonotactic priorities. Segmental order and phonotactic priorities are discussed in detail.
The second article, by Horton-Ikard and Pittman, "Examining the Writing of Adolescent African American English Speakers: Suggestions for Assessment and Intervention," examines the written language skills of young AAE speakers. Four patterns were identified in the students' written language samples that were also produced in their oral language samples and were consistent with AAE dialect use, and judged as errors on the basis of GAE standards. The authors provide strategies for helping students understand the differences between AAE and GAE dialect use through contrastive analysis procedures and dialect awareness tasks that are intended to increase their standard written English skills.
The third article, authored by Craig-Unkefer and Camarata, "Language Intervention in AAE-Speaking Children: Issues and Preliminary Data," examines two intervention methods that have been used extensively by speech-language pathologists and validated for use with GAE speakers-imitation using discrete trials and conversational recast. The authors questioned whether the intervention methods were effective when used with children who speak AAE. They found that both interventions were associated with growth in morphological targets that were both contrastive and noncontrastive between AAE and GAE, for all participants in the study. Preliminary results suggest that treatments utilizing imitation and discrete trials and conversational recast are effective when used with children who are learning AAE and are at risk for language impairment in the area of grammatical morphology.
The fourth article, by Nelson, and titled, "Changes in Story Probes Written Across Third Grade by African American and European American Students in a Writing Lab Approach," examines the changes in multilevel language indicators, including AAE features, in stories written by third-grade students participating in a strength-based writing lab approach to language instruction and intervention. The writing lab was designed to improve their writing skills at the discourse, sentence, and word levels. Results show that all of the students acquired new skills in written expression. The AA students appeared to be adding dialectal shifting proficiency to their repertoires.
The final article, by Burns, Velleman, Green, and Roeper, "New Branches From Old Roots: Experts Respond to Questions About African American English Development and Language Intervention," uses a question-and-answer format to respond to questions about working with children who speak AAE in clinical and educational contexts. The respondents urge speech-language pathologists to appreciate AAE as students' first language (L1), to view all language for its communicative potential, and to remain aware of implications of the latest research on AAE.
This issue of Topics in Language Disorders presents reports of new research on AAE with implications for speech, language, and writing intervention. The articles reflect a considerable change in the extant communication disorders literature from discussing AAE simply as a list of features to viewing AAE and linguistic system that is L1 for many AA children. The overarching theme of the articles focuses on avoiding subtracting from children's L1 when providing treatment for a genuine speech, language, or writing problem and improving their L2, GAE, in contexts where GAE is necessary.
Frances A. Burns, PhD
Issue Co-Editor
Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Gloria T. Weddington, PhD
Issue Co-Editor
Professor, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA
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