The Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation

1. The Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation Presenters: 2003 NYSSLHA Convention Harry N. Seymour Univ of Massachusetts Thomas Roeper Univ of Massachusetts Jill deVilliers Smith College Peter deVilliers Smith College *supported by NIH grant N01-DC-8-2104 *webpage:www.umass.edu/aae

2. Definition

3. Myths Behind the Controversy AAE is simply bad or broken English. AAE jeopardizes  learning Standard English AAE is political correctness gone amuck. AAE is a cruel self-esteem hoax.

4. Clinical Problem Standardized tests for children who speak African American English The deficit/difference dilemma Too Many African American children fail

5. Misdiagnosis Over-representation 14.8 % of general population 20.2% of special education Under-representation Unclear

6. Clinical Solution Make the tests harder Avoid somewhat superficial aspects of language Contrasts between dialects Focus on deep principles of language every child should know Noncontrastive elements between dialects

7. The DELV (Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation) -- Goals To develop a comprehensive language assessment of syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and phonology between ages 4 and 9. To be able to determine whether language variation in children is due to Development, Dialect, Delay, or Disorder. To create a test that is not biased against dialect speakers, especially African-American English speakers.

8. Collaborators Peggy Speas Angelika Kratzer Christina Foreman Barbara Pearson Eliane Ramos Lisa Selkirk Lisa Green Lamya Abdulkarim Shelley Velleman Toya Wyatt Bart Hollebrandse Fred Hall Mike Dickey Linda Bland Debra Garrett Mike Terry Tempe Champion Minjoo Kim Janice Jackson Laura Wagner Ida Stockman D’Jaris Coles Robin Schafer Deanna Moore Valerie Johnson Kristen Asplin Joe Pater Tim Bryant Frances Burns Caroline Jones The Psychological Corporation Uri Strauss

9. Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation (DELV) Variation in speech and language development Variation in speech and language disorders Variation in speech and language dialects

10. The DELV Tests DELV-Screening Test (3/25/03) Identifies language variation status Identifies students at risk for a disorder DELV-Criterion Referenced Test (Spring, 03) Diagnose speech and language disorders Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatic, Phonology DELV-Standardized Version (2005) Standardized exclusively on AAE children

11. General Results of the DELV Field Testing -- The Subject Sample 1014 four to nine year olds, most of them from working class backgrounds and from all regions of the USA. There were 217 four-year-olds, 266 five-year-olds, 300 six-year-olds, 56 seven-year-olds, 101 eight-year-olds and 74 nine-year-olds. Approximately 60% of the children were characterized by the testing clinicians as speakers of African American English (AAE), the other 40% as speakers of Mainstream American English (MAE). AAE and MAE children were matched for parental education level. Approximately 1/3rd of the children at each age and in each dialect group were identified by the participating clinicians and schools as having a specific language-impairment and were receiving language services. 10 to 15% of the children spread equally across ages and dialect groups were diagnosed as having phonological or articulation problems.

12. DELV-SCR Structure The test has a screener version (DELV-SCR) that takes 15 to 20 minutes to administer. The screener contains morphosyntax and phonology Identifier Items on which AAE-speaking children produce systematically different responses from MAE. It also contains a set of Diagnostic Items designed to tell the clinician whether further testing is needed because the child is at risk for language delay or impairment.

13. Screener Morphosyntax Identifier Items Have/has (“The girl have (has) a big kite”) 3rd person present tense ‘s (“The girl always sleep(s).”) Doesn’t/don’t (“This girl don’t (doesn’t) like to play basketball.”) Be copula forms (They was (were) sick”)

14. Screener Phonology Identifier Items Substitution f/th: bath --->baf Substitution v/th: breathe --->breav or bread Zero Cluster Element: gift--->gif

15. Language Variation Status Mainstream American English (MAE) Some Variation from MAE Strong Variation from Mae

16. Performance of the different dialect and impairment status groups on the Identifier Items on the DELV-SCR (Non-mainstream responses).

17. Major Theories of SLI Difficulty with morphosyntax: (Leonard, Rice). Difficulty repeating nonsense words (Bishop) Difficulty with variables and embedded clauses (Penner, Roeper & Seymour, van der Lely)

18. Screener Diagnostic Items Past tense was/were auxiliary and copula forms (obligatory in both MAE and AAE). Elliptical Possessive pronoun (obligatory in both MAE and AAE). Thsee are for morphosyntax. Non-word Repetition (for memory problems) Wh-Question Comprehension (for variables and embedding)

19. Performance of typically developing and language impaired children on the Diagnostic Items on the DELV-SCR (Errors)

20. Performance of MAE and AAE speaking children on the Diagnostic Items on the DELV-SCR (Errors)

21. Is a screener enough? A screener is just that: it does not diagnose. A practitioner needs to know more precisely what the child’s areas of difficulties are, for both accurate diagnosis and design of remediation. The DELV-CR goes deeper, and checks what the results of the screener mean.

22. Characteristics of the DELV-CR The DELV-CR (criterion-referenced test) has 11 subtest components organized into four language domains. Syntax = Wh-Q comprehension, Passives comprehension, Articles production. Pragmatics = Wh-Q asking, Communicative Role Taking (production), Narrative. Semantics = Verb contrast production, Preposition contrast production, Quantifier comprehension, and Syntactic Bootstrapping/Fast mapping. Phonology

23. Components of The DELV SYNTAX Domain

24. ARTICLES: TESTING REQUIREMENTS OF DISCOURSE PROPERTIES Does the child carry information from one sentence into another? Ex. A bird flew out of a cage because something was open? What was it? THE door (nor A door) Has the child learned to interpret articles as reference to context?

25. Examples of eliciting questions Part-the: Sally was eating an ice-cream cone when suddenly- slosh! something fell out and she only had the cone left. What was it? (THE icecream) Familiar-the: A cat and a bird were sitting in a tree. They were friends. One of them flew out of the tree. Guess which. (THE bird) Specific-a: I'll bet you have something hanging on the wall of your room at home. What is it? (A picture) Non-referential-a: Tyrone is going to take a nap, and he wants to cuddle with something,. What does he need? (A blanket) Predicational-a: Think of a baseball player. Can you imagine what one looks like? What does he have? (A glove)

26. Wh-factors: Query: what is that Echo: you ate WHAT Exclamative: What nice clothes you have! Indirect question: he knows what to do => not answered Relative clause: the man who you saw Discourse connected: John has 3 hats. Which is best?

27. Core CONCEPT #1 IN SYNTAX on the DELV I. Principles of MOVEMENT Simple: “I saw a boy, a girl, and a dog.” => “What did I see ( - ) ?” Complex: What did she say she saw ( - )? Does the child get complex movement right?

28. Core Syntactic Concept #1 on the DELV (con’t) Does the child know… 1. Where the WH word originates What did he eat ( - )? When did she say ( - ) she lost her purse (- )? 2. When certain structures "block" certain meanings: Ex. When did she say how she lost her purse? can only mean "when did she SAY it” not “When did she lose it?”

29. Core Syntactic CONCEPT #2 on the DELV II. VARIABLES (words that are intended to refer not to a single referent, but to members of a set) Examples: Simple Question (1 variable) . (“I saw a boy, a girl, and a dog.”) “What did I see?” “what” = set of objects (boy, girl, dog) “Who was at dinner?” “who” = the 5 or 6 individuals at dinner

30. Core Syntactic CONCEPT #2 on the DELV (con’t) II. b. Complex Variables 2 variables in the same sentence: “who bought what?” requires reference to all the members in the 2 sets in an ordered relation: Person 1 bought Thing 1 Person 2 bought Thing 2 Does the child get variable properties right?

31. Core Syntactic CONCEPT #2 on the DELV (con’t) Does the child know how to answer Double WH-questions: Who ate what? How did she play what? Requires “set” answers to BOTH questions (he and she, chocolate and vanilla) Not just listed, but PAIRED. Ex. HE ate CHOCOLATE, and SHE ate VANILLA.

32. Testing Complex WH-Question Comprehension We test this: 1) Can children answer both parts of a double-WH? 2) Can children answer questions whose site of origin is far away (long distance)? and 3) Can children appropriately block meanings that the grammar doesn’t allow, i.e.when there is a barrier?

33. Wh-Question Comprehension:Testing Procedure The child is told a brief story about a pictured event. They are then asked the key test question about some aspect of the event. The pictured events and stories support several possible interpretations of the question.

34. Typical Answers to double WH questions PAIRED, EXHAUSTIVE responses Ex. She played the piano with her hands and the drums with her feet. SINGLETONS (Incorrect) One element: “piano” “with her feet” Both objects, no instruments: “piano and drums” One pair: “the piano with her hands.” OTHER “She played a lot.” “She was playing.”

35. Double WH Response Types by Age and Language Status (N = 1014, 708 Typically Developing,306 Language Impaired)

36. Typical Answers to “False Clause” questions LONG DISTANCE (LD) TWO CLAUSE responses Ex. She said she bought paper towels. ONE CLAUSE responses (Incorrect) Ex. (She bought) a birthday cake. OTHER “a surprise” “a bag” “I don’t know.”

37. LD False Clause Response Types by Age and Language Status (N = 1014)

38. Long distance movement barriers We also tested children on long distance movement, and respect for a variety of barrier effects: wh-islands: How did the girl ask how to ride? Who did the girl ask what to bring? relative clauses: How did the boy who sneezed drink the milk? empty operators: Where did the boy buy the lemonade to splash on his face?

39. Typical Answers toWH-barriers questions SHORT DISTANCE responses (How did she learn…?) By watching TV.. MEDIAL ANSWERS (Incorrect) (…what to bake?) “a cake” LONG DISTANCE responses (Incorrect) (How…..bake?) “With a pudding mix,” “With a spoon” OTHER Ex. “She didn’t know how.”

40. WH Barrier Response Types by Age and Language Status (N = 1014)

41. Summary of barrier effects All the barriers were obeyed well even in LI but the rate of errors was higher in LI children. The most prevalent error was answering the medial, an error type that persists in LI. No children answer the “who” complementizer in the relative clause, despite superficial equivalence.

42. The Echo-Exhaustive distinction Echo questions differ from ‘real” wh questions in several ways: What did the children eat? The children ate what?

43. Differences Echo questions ask for the missing constituent, real wh for an exhaustive answer Echo questions can be substitute for a part of a constituent, real wh cannot: The boy said he bought a big blue what? * What did the boy say he bought a big blue t?

44. Previous tests Mari Takahashi (1991) tested whether 3 year olds respected this distinction and got nice contrasting results: more exhaustive for real wh, more constituents for echo questions. A student pilot study reported in de Villiers and Roeper 1995 found intonation insignificant for distinguishing the two.

45. Echo/Exhaustive Distinction by age

46. Wh-Question Asking Elicitation Procedure The child is shown a picture with something missing from it. They have to ask the right question to find out what the event is about. The missing elements of the pictures include objects, people, locations, tools, and causes of emotions -- so what, who, where, how, and why questions are motivated. Different levels of prompting are given for each trial if the child does not spontaneously ask an appropriate question -- varying from the semantic domain of the question to ask, to the specific wh-word to begin the question with. If the child asks an appropriate question they are shown the complete picture.

47. Wh-Question production in MAE and AAE speaking children following all prompts.

48. Wh-Question production in typically developing and language impaired children following all prompts.

49. Production of Double Wh-Questions by Typically-developing and Language-impaired Children following all prompts

50. Why is semantics a challenge? Bias of acquired vocabulary tests: too culturally dependent? Want to look at process: CAN the child learn a new word easily? For older children, lexical organization/retrieval may be more significant than size of vocabulary.