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Interest in language disorders among African-American children arises from the recognition that a significant number of these children speak a form of English variously referred to as Black English, African-American English, African-American Vernacular English and Ebonics (see dialect speakers). African-American English (AAE), the term preferred here, differs sufficiently from Standard American English (SAE) to adversely affect the educational and clinical treatment of African-American children. In addressing this issue, the American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association (ASHA) has taken the official position that children should not be viewed as having a speech and language problem because they speak AAE (ASHA, 1983). ASHA's position is consistent with that of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), which asserts AAE to be legitimate, systematic, and rule-governed (LSA, 1997). Despite proclamations of this kind, child speakers of AAE are overrepresented in special education classes, in part because of their linguistic background (Kuelen, Weddington, and Debose, 1998).
An important factor contributing to this overrepresentation is clinicians' failure to differentiate legitimate patterns of AAE from symptoms of a language disorder. This failure results from an assessment process that relies heavily on identifying deviations from SAE as signs of impairment. Moreover, when these deviations are the sole symptoms and no confirming evidence exists of concomitant disorders such as hearing impairment, cognitive-intellectual deficits, neurological impairment, or psycho-emotional problems, the reliance on deviant SAE patterns for diagnosis is even greater.
A case in point is specific language impairment (SLI), a disorder presumably restricted to aberrant language symptoms without a known cause (Watkins and Rice, 1994). Because the language symptoms of SLI can appear similar to legitimate language patterns of AAE (Seymour, Bland-Stewart, and Green, 1998), African-American children are at risk for SLI misdiagnosis. This kind of misdiagnosis epitomizes linguistic and cultural bias in assessment, which has been a major issue of concern to clinical professionals committed to equity and fairness in testing. Although far from resolved, linguistic bias in testing has been addressed by focusing on three related areas: language acquisition milestones for AAE, reduction of bias in assessment methods, and reduction of bias in intervention strategies.
Language Acquisition Milestones for AAE
Much of what is known about language acquisition in SAE undoubtedly also applies to the AAE-speaking child. However, it is not altogether clear whether speakers of AAE and SAE follow parallel tracks in mastering their respective adult systems. Acquisition data on AAE suggest that the two are quite similar until approximately the age of 3, at which point they diverge (Cole, 1980). This claim rests largely on evidence that young children from both language groups produce similar kinds of developmental “errors.” However, these similarities may not occur for the same reasons, since several early developmental patterns also appear to match the adult AAE system. For example, absent morphological inflections are common in the emerging language of AAE and SAE as well as in adult AAE.
Whether these early patterns are a function of development or are manifestations of the AAE system is an important question. It may be that AAE development and maturation are uniquely influenced by adult AAE in ways unlikely for SAE. Some preliminary evidence to support this position comes from the work of Wyatt (1995), who showed that African-American preschoolers followed the same adult AAE constraint conditions in their optional use of zero copulas. No comparable analysis has been done on zero copulas at earlier periods or for developmental SAE patterns, however.
Evidence of differences in acquisition becomes clearer as children's language systems mature and AAE patterns become more evident (Washington and Craig, 1994). Features that once appeared similar between AAE and SAE begin to disappear in SAE and may even increase in frequency in AAE, as with the zero copula after the age of 3 (Kovac, 1980). Between the preschool period and age 5, archetypical AAE features are observed in children across socioeconomic levels, but their density is greater among low socioeconomic classes and among males (Wyatt, 1995; Washington and Craig, 1998).
Although the descriptive accounts of early AAE have provided important information about the characteristics and pervasiveness of child AAE, still limited milestone data exist about age ranges at which language structures are mastered and the appropriate form those structures should take. In contrast, a rich source of acquisition data in SAE establishes when children of various ages acquire language milestones in ways consistent with their SAE peers. This disparity in milestone data between AAE and SAE requires a somewhat different assessment strategy in order to reduce bias.
Reduction of Bias in Assessment Methods
Of the several kinds of possible bias in language disorders (Taylor and Payne, 1983), perhaps the most intractable is linguistic and cultural bias associated with existing standardized tests. These tests are biased because they have not been specifically designed for and standardized on AAE. As a consequence, alternative and “nonstandardized” assessment methods have been recommended (Seymour and Miller-Jones, 1981; Leonard and Weiss, 1983; Stockman, 1996). These methods include language sampling analysis and criterion-referenced language probes, which are both common methods in the clinical process and typically complement norm-referenced testing. Their specific use with AAE-speaking children is important because they offer a less biased, richer, more dynamic and naturalistic source for analysis than is found in the more linguistically biased, relatively restrictive, and artificial context of standardized tests.
However, there are disadvantages with language sampling and language probes as well. They are time-intensive and possibly less reliable, and they too are limited by the inadequate normative descriptions of AAE. In an attempt to minimize the importance of specific AAE norms in the assessment process, several authors have proposed focusing alternative assessment methods on those language elements that are not specific to AAE features. Such a focus circumvents difficult questions about the status of patterns such as absent language elements. Stockman (1996) proposed the Minimal Competency Core (MCC), which is a criterion-referenced measure that represents the lowest end of a competency scale of obligatory language patterns that typically developing children should demonstrate, irrespective of their language backgrounds. Similarly, Craig and Washington (1994) advocated the avoidance of several AAE-specific features dominated by morphosyntax by focusing on complex sentence constructions common to both AAE and SAE. Also, Seymour, Bland-Stewart, and Green (1998) showed that language features that did not contrast between AAE and SAE were better predictors of language disorders than those that were contrastive.
Each of the above recommendations can be useful in identifying possible language disorders. However, to determine the nature of the problem requires a more in-depth and complete analysis of the child's language, since language disorders are likely to extend beyond only language behaviors shared between AAE and SAE, or only in complex sentences. To ignore AAE features or any aspect of the child's language in determining the nature of a problem could yield an incomplete and distorted profile. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the child's productive capacity for a variety of targeted language structures that have been identified in a representative sample of language and that can be probed further under various linguistic and situational contexts (Seymour, 1986). With sufficient evidence about the nature of a child's language problems, the foundation then exists for intervention.
Reduction of Bias in Intervention Strategies
Decisions about intervention strategies depend directly on evidence obtained about the nature of the child's problem. For reasons stated earlier, this evidence can be more valid and less biased when alternative or no standardized testing methods are used. However, because these methods are time-consuming and require a multiple phase process, Seymour (1986) advocated a diagnostic-intervention model in which intervention is part of ongoing assessment. In this model, intervention is based on diagnostic hypotheses formulated from an initial and tentative diagnosis, and then tested by language probes. The process is one of repeatedly formulating hypotheses, testing them, and reformulating them, again and again, as needed.
The test-retest approach is recommended for AAE-speaking children largely because of the uncertainty about the nature of AAE. This uncertainty is less a factor in identifying a language disorder, since identification can be made without focusing on AAE features. However, when determining the nature of the child's problem and treating those problems, AAE features should not be avoided if a complete and accurate account of the child's language is the objective. Consider the kind of diagnostic information needed for an AAE-speaking child who fails to produce any copulas, unlike optional copula use by his AAE-speaking peers. At least two intervention strategies are possible: (1) to apply an SAE model by targeting copulas wherever they are obligatory in SAE, or (2) to follow an AAE model and target copulas in a manner consistent with optional use. Unfortunately, no matter how desirable the latter course of action might be, it is unlikely without greater knowledge of the linguistic conditions that determine optional use.
Consequently, a default to an SAE model in situations where clinical solutions for AAE are not readily apparent may be inevitable until AAE is more fully described and viewed as a complete grammar comprised of systems (Green, 1995), rather than as simply a list of structures defined by their contrast with SAE. A system's account requires answers to some complex linguistic and social questions about African-American children's development and use of language in a context characterized by linguistic duality.
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