Semester of Graduation

May 2025

Degree

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Purpose

Within the context of African American English (AAE), this study aimed to examine the clinical utility of three different types of NWR tasks to differentiate children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) from those who are typically developing (TD), by percentage of phonemes correct (PPC) and by type of error (e.g., consonants or vowels; omissions or substitutions). Additionally, this study allowed for examination of the relationship between the children’s NWR performance and their density of dialect-specific forms.

Methods

The data came from 50 kindergarteners (25 females, 25 males) who had participated in a multi-year study of childhood DLD within the context of AAE; 15 were classified as DLD and 35 as TD, with their ages ranging from 60 to 75 months. The children’s density of dialect-specific form (DSF) use was derived from the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation– Screener Test (DELV-ST). The three NWR tasks were from published studies and referred to as Dollaghan and Campbell (1998), Shriberg et al. (2009), and Chiat et al. (2012).

Results

All three tasks using overall PPC yielded differences between clinical groups. Length effects were observed, as well as interactions between group and length for Dollaghan and Campbell, with the group difference limited to 3-syllable nonce words. An error analysis using percentage of phonemic errors (PPE) also indicated an interaction for Chiat et al. between group and phonemic error type, with the group difference tied to consonant errors but not vowel errors. However, an interaction was not observed when substitutions and omissions were examined; although the DLD group made more errors overall, both groups produced more substitutions than omissions. Finally, no correlations were found between the children’s PPC or PPE values and their DSF density. This was likely related to a limited range in the children’s DSF scores.

Conclusion

Results indicate that the three NWR tasks provide diagnostic utility for identifying childhood DLD within the dialect of AAE. At the same time, the findings call for additional study to better understand differences between NWR tasks, the types of errors children make during these tasks, and relationships between their NWR performance and DSF densities.

Date

12-19-2024

Committee Chair

Oetting, Janna

Download

Share

COinS