Project Summary/Abstract
According to the the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Section 504, every child is entitled to a free and appropriate
public education; however, that is not always the case for many African American and Latino children. Children
from under-represented backgrounds are often misdiagnosed with speech sound disorders due to limited
research and training in linguistic diversity (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2017). When
children are misdiagnosed with speech sound disorders, they receive therapy services they do not need. As a
result, linguistically diverse children are pulled out of their classrooms and miss general education curriculum.
Not only does it waste taxpayers’ dollars, it results in the under-education of a large segment of our student
population. Misdiagnosis of speech sound disorders occurs when speech-language pathologists do not have
the right evaluation tools to accurately diagnose children who speak a dialect of English that is unfamiliar to
them. Therefore, this research will (1) develop a theoretical model that predicts the language change that
occurs when different dialects come in contact with one another and (2) document the dialect of English that
emerges when African American and Latino children live and go to school together in order to develop
accurate diagnostic criteria for speakers of this dialect. Speech samples from African American and Latino
children will be transcribed and analyzed for production patterns. By comparing these children’s speech
production to that of their peers who speak Standard American English on current standard measures of
speech sound ability, I will not only be able to characterize typical speech and disordered speech in speakers
of this dialect, but develop the diagnostic criteria that speech-language pathologists need to make accurate
diagnoses and prevent children from missing out on the education they deserve. This fellowship includes
mentorship and training opportunities with an interdisciplinary team of researchers across the country,
including the two data collection regions - Tucson, Arizona and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. The training
goals for this fellowship include training in statistics and phonetics software programs as well as training in the
development of diagnostic assessment protocols.
