Harry N. Seymour

Agreement without understanding? The case of third person singular /s/

This study examined the comprehension of third person singular /s/ as a number agreement marker in children speaking Mainstream American English (MAE). Sixty-two MAE-speaking children aged 3-6 years were presented with a comprehension task where they had to focus on the verb as a clue to number agreement. Overall, results showed that only the 5- and 6-year olds were sensitive to third person singular /s/ as an index of subject number in comprehension, despite their earlier command in production. The implications for development of agreement are discussed.

The Acquisition of a Phonologic Feature of Black English.

Production and perception of word-final /theta/ was assessed among Black English and standard English speaking children of grades 1-4. The two dialectal groups were significantly different in production but not in perception of the word-final /theta/. Comparable perceptual performance on discrimination and recognition tasks across the four grade-levels indicated parallel perceptual mastery of /theta/ between groups despite production differences of form. Production of respective adult dialect forms, that is, /theta/ for standard English and /theta/----/f/ for Black English, preceded perceptual mastery. Because /theta/ is represented by the /theta/----/f/ substitution pattern in both adult Black English and emerging phonology of standard English, its acquisitional form in the phonology of Black English speaking children has particular implications for acquisitional theory and the applied clinical domain. Thus, sequential developmental stages for the acquisition of word-final /theta/ are proposed in this study and clinical implications discussed.

Language and Cognitive Assessment of Black Children

Publisher Summary Assessment procedures that use standard English as normal referents against which language problems are measured are inappropriate for black English speakers. The two most widely used assessment procedures involve standard and nonstandard elicitation methods. Both methods are broadly represented by many different procedures and tests that have standard English in common as the referent for normalization. This chapter discusses alternatives to the traditional assessment procedures. The proposed assessment strategies should not be viewed as appropriate only to black children, but they are suggestions that take language and cognitive dimensions unique to black children into consideration. Clearly, black children are more like children of other ethnic and cultural backgrounds than being different. Thus, the proposed strategies for assessment integrate principles that are more or less universally appropriate with those that are dialectically specific to black children

Language disorders as a window on universal grammar: an abstract theory of agreement for IP, DP, and V-PP.

A new concept of Agreement (AGR) has been represented as a Formal Feature that can appear in a wide range of different configurations (Chomsky, 1998). A case study from language disorders supports and extends this abstract concept. The child shows no agreement in Inflectional Phrase me can and Determiner Phrase them eyes. We then extend the notion of AGR to include verb-Prepositional Phrase relations, where the child also systematically avoids certain prepositions (go beach). The analysis is supported by intuitional data from compounds (sweep with broom --> broom-swept). We also define a systematic notion of Possible deficit as a premature fixation of functional items which normally require additional Phi-features. The notion of Maximization of Formal Features then emerges as a significant feature of learnability from both a normal and disordered perspective.

The Effect of Race on Language Elicitation

Neither the race of the examiner nor the race of the child depicted in the stimulus materials affected the language performance of randomly selected Black and White children when language performan...

Ebonics And Public Law 94-142:

In November, 1975, the Congress of the United States passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, Public Law 94-142 (P.L. 94-142). Major implementation beginning in October, 1977, P.L. 94-142 is truly a monumental event in the history of American education. Almost every parent, teacher and child will in some way be affected by this new law which provides financial support for the education of the handicapped and guarantees their educational rights. Specifically, P.L. 94-142 was established for the following purpose:

Unbiased Assessment Of First Language Acquisition In English: Distinguishing Development And Dialect From Disorder

In the United States, as in all countries of the world in which English is widely spoken, there exist different dialects or variants of the language. These dialects are often defined by regional or cultural groups and may vary from each other in one or more of several aspects of the language – phonology, morphology, syntax, lexical semantics, or pragmatics (ASHA 2003, Wolfram 1991). Thus, we can distinguish between Cajun English, spoken in much of Louisiana, Appalachian English, spoken in the states along the Appalachian mountains, especially Kentucky and West Virginia, or the broader Southern American English spoken across the southeastern states. All of these dialects reflect coherent rule-governed varieties of the English language.

Speaker Intelligibility of Black and White School Children for Black and White Adult Listeners Under Varying Listening Conditions

Word discrimination scores were obtained from 25 black and 25 white college students. Monosyllabic words were spoken by 24 black and 24 white children from a low socio-economic urban environment. Listening was conducted in quiet, at a 10 dB signal-to-noise ratio, and at a 0 dB signal-to-noise ratio. Results showed black children and white children were equally intelligible to the black adult-listeners, while the white adult-listeners found white children significantly more intelligible than black children. Word discrimination scores for black adults listening to black children were comparable to those of white adults listening to the white children. The quiet listening condition yielded the best scores, 10 dB S/N next best, and 0 dB the poorest. Noise deteriorated word discrimination scores of the black and white listeners differently.

Attributes of loudness, pitch and rate among male children.

Ratings, by trained judges, of vocal loudness level, pitch level and rate of speaking for a nonpathological sample population of male children were studied relative to subjective ratings of vocal merit. Averaged physical measurements for loudness level, pitch level and rate of speaking determined points of reference and the ranges within which parameters were rated. Vocal samples of male children, judged to have more acceptable voices, were rated significantly higher in pitch level, greater in loudness and faster in rate of speaking than children judged to have less acceptable voices.