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

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.

Sex Differences in White Matter Pathways Related to Language Ability

Evidence from functional imaging studies points to a role for gender in language ability. However, recent studies suggest that sex differences in the neural basis of language are still unclear, reflecting a complex interaction between sex and language ability. We used diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging and global probabilistic tractography to investigate white matter (WM) pathways between 32 male and 35 age- and IQ-matched female adult participants in relation to their verbal abilities. Males showed higher fractional anisotropy (FA) in the left anterior thalamic radiations (ATR), right cingulum-angular bundle, right corticospinal tract, bilateral superior longitudinal fasciculus-temporal terminations, bilateral uncinate fasciculus (UNC), and corpus callosum-forceps minor when compared with the female group. In contrast, females showed higher radial diffusivity (RD) in the left ATR and left UNC when compared to the male group. The relationship between WM metrics and verbal ability also differed across the two groups: a negative correlation between verbal comprehension index (VCI) and FA as well as axial diffusivity (AD) in left cingulum-cingulate gyrus (CCG) supracallosal bundle in males but not in females; a negative correlation between verbal IQ (VIQ) and FA in the right corticospinal tract (CST), and a positive correlation between VCI and RD in corpus callosum-forceps minor in the female but not in the male group. A direct comparison of these correlation coefficients yielded significant differences between the groups for the VCI-AD and VIQ -FA associations. The findings may reflect sex differences in WM related to language ability.

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.

Assessment of morphosyntactic development in European Portuguese-speaking children

OBJECTIVE

Studies on the late acquisition of morphosyntax in European Portuguese (EP)-speaking children are relatively scarce in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to report data on the morphosyntactic domain from typically developing children. The present investigation focused on differences in morphosyntactic performance according to specific demographic variables (e.g., gender, age, ecological setting, and socioeconomic background).

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Eighty EP-speaking children aged between 6 years and 6 years and 11 months were assessed with the Language Test - Preschool Language Assessment (TL-ALPE).

RESULTS

Within the age range considered, some receptive and productive competencies were acquired. Significant differences were found for gender and age.

CONCLUSION

These outcomes contribute to the knowledge of late developmental processes in the morphosyntactic domain, in EP-speaking children, presenting well-established performance standards. The provided reference information is fundamental to accurately identify children with language impairment and to construct new valid assessment instruments.

Validity and reliability of the European-Portuguese preschool language assessment ALPE

BACKGROUND/AIMS

To design and standardize the Preschool Language Test (Teste de Linguagem-Avaliação da Linguagem Pré-Escolar, TL-ALPE) which assesses European Portuguese (EP)-speaking children's receptive and expressive language abilities.

METHODS

To standardize TL-ALPE, data was collected on 817 EP-speaking children aged 3 years and 0 months to 5 years and 12 months. The standardization, validity and reliability procedures of TL-ALPE followed the standard recommendations.

RESULTS

TL-ALPE presented a strong cohesion (internal consistency, >80%) and strong inter- and intrajudge reliability (>90%). The content validity was verified by the description of instrument domain and the items. The construct validity of TL-ALPE was confirmed by the proportional increase in mean score values with age for both receptive and expressive abilities. The results of concurrent validity revealed strong correlations between TL-ALPE and other EP preschool language tests for expressive and total language scores.

CONCLUSION

TL-ALPE is a valid and reliable instrument to assess language skills of EP-speaking preschool children.

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.

What You Hear and What You Say: Language Performance in Spanish English Bilinguals

PURPOSE: This study assesses the factors that contribute to Spanish and English language development in bilingual children. METHOD: 757 Hispanic Pre-kindergarten and kindergarten age children completed screening tests of semantic and morphosyntactic development in Spanish and English. Parents provided information about their occupation and education as well as their children's English and Spanish exposure. Data were analyzed using zero-inflated regression models (comprising a logistic regression component and a negative binomial or Poisson component) to explore factors that contributed to children initiating L1 and L2 performance and factors that contributed to building children's knowledge. RESULTS: Factors that were positively associated with initiating L1 and L2 performance were language input/output, free and reduced lunch, and age. Factors associated with building knowledge included age, parent education, input/output, free and reduced lunch and school district. CONCLUSION: Amount of language input is important as children begin to use a language, and amount of language output is important for adding knowledge to their language. Semantic development seemed to be driven more by input while morphosyntax development relied on both input and output. Clinicians who assess bilingual children should examine children's language output in their second language to better understand their levels of performance.

African American English-speaking students: an examination of the relationship between dialect shifting and reading outcomes

PURPOSE

In this study, the authors evaluated the contribution made by dialect shifting to reading achievement test scores of African American English (AAE)-speaking students when controlling for the effects of socioeconomic status (SES), general oral language abilities, and writing skills.

METHOD

Participants were 165 typically developing African American 1st through 5th graders. Half were male and half were female, one third were from low-SES homes, and two-thirds were from middle-SES homes. Dialect shifting away from AAE toward Standard American English (SAE) was determined by comparing AAE production rates during oral and written narratives. Structural equation modeling evaluated the relative contributions of AAE rates, SES, and general oral language and writing skills on standardized reading achievement scores.

RESULTS

AAE production rates were inversely related to reading achievement scores and decreased significantly between the oral and written narratives. Lower rates in writing predicted a substantial amount of the variance in reading scores, showing a significant direct effect and a significant indirect effect mediated by measures of oral language comprehension.

CONCLUSION

The findings support a dialect shifting-reading achievement hypothesis, which proposes that AAE-speaking students who learn to use SAE in literacy tasks will outperform their peers who do not make this linguistic adaptation.