Using language sample analyses across English dialects: A case-based approach for preschoolers.
Leslie E Kokotek, Karla N Washington, Nicole Bazzocchi
PMID 38965827WHAT IT FOUND
Three typically developing preschoolers spoke different English dialects.
Scores varied across language analysis methods, but no differences reached statistical significance. These cases show how dialects affect test scores, but do not prove which method is best.
Key findings
01A non-parametric analysis of language sample measures across three children with different dialect backgrounds found no statistically significant differences.
02The child speaking African American English scored highest on most measures of lexical diversity and phrase structure, while the child speaking Jamaican English scored highest on type-token ratio.
03The child speaking Jamaican English had the lowest scores on most grammatical complexity measures, likely due to cross-linguistic influence from Jamaican Creole.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only three children were studied, making it impossible to generalise findings to other speakers of these dialects. The study was underpowered to detect small but clinically meaningful differences between groups. The AAE-speaking child was assessed by an examiner who did not speak AAE, which may have influenced the child's language production. Socioeconomic status and maternal education were not controlled for in all cases.
Declared interests
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that lower scores on grammatical complexity measures for children speaking non-mainstream dialects indicate a language disorder. This study shows that typically developing children from these backgrounds often score lower on these specific metrics due to dialectal differences, not impairment.