Dr.
Ramonda Horton-Ikard
Assistant Professor Speech-Language
Pathology
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
back
to LASER Programs
|
Language
Development in Children from Low-income Backgrounds
Children with specific language impairment are typically
those beyond 36 months of age who demonstrate deficits
in key areas of receptive and expressive language, such
as grammatical morphology or word formulation processes
(Evans, 2000; Rice, 1997). The clinical criteria for
specific language impairment denotes that a child must
score a specified number of deviations below the average
on standardized measures of language assessment but have
average or typical performance on a measure of nonverbal
intelligence. The clinical criteria used to diagnose
specific language impairment is appropriate for use in
situations in which there are no additional risk factors
such as poverty, cultural mismatches between home and
school culture, and difference in access to external
support mechanisms. This means that many children from
ethnic and/or impoverished backgrounds are under or over
identified for specific language impairment programs.
This investigation will describe the language production
of preschoolers from impoverished backgrounds through
the examination of specific measures of language production
obtained in naturalistic settings. In addition, assessment
tools purported to be free of cultural biases will be
evaluated for their ability to appropriately measure
language ability and performance. |
