Creole Languages and American Englishes: Multilingualism and Pediatric Speech-Language Pathology

Abstract

Multilingualism is the norm, not the exception, with most children speaking more than one language daily. These factors have motivated an increased need to better understand language use in the growing population of children whose cultural and linguistic background evidence language variation by way of Creole languages and dialects of American Englishes. Within speech-language pathology in the United States, however, a cultural and linguistic mismatch exists with only 8% of speech-language pathologists self-identifying as multilingual service providers. A variety of publications have documented speech-language development and disorders in speakers of majority language pairings (such as Spanish-English) to address this mismatch and the potential for misdiagnosis of speech-language function. However, there is a shortage of information on speakers of minority language pairings (such as a Creole language and its lexifier) for supporting culturally responsive practices in speech-language pathology. This clinical seminar considers multilingualism for speech-language pathology with the goal of offering a historical context. In so doing, this clinical seminar aims to address the need for distinguishing between dialect and disorder, and offer practical considerations that reduce the risk of misdiagnosis in children who speak minority languages such as Creoles (e.g., Gullah/Geechee, Jamaican Creole) and dialects of American Englishes (e.g., African American English), as examples in the context of the United States.

Keywords

American Englishes - Creole - development and disorder - multilingual - speech-language pathology

Publikationsverlauf

Artikel online veröffentlicht:
05. Februar 2025

• References

• Alleyene, M. C. (1980). Comparative Afro-American. Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma
• American Speech-Language-Hearing Association [ASHA]. (2024). Profile of ASHA multilingual service providers, year-end 2023. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Accessed December 6, 2024 at: www.asha.org
• Archibald, L. M. D., & Gathercole, S. E. (2007). Nonword repetition and serial recall: equivalent measures of verbal short-term memory? Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 587–606
• Arias, G., & Friberg, J. (2017). Bilingual language assessment: contemporary versus recommended practice in American schools. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 48(1), 1–15
• Bakker, P. (2008). Pidgins versus Creoles and Pidgin Creoles. In: S. Kowenberg & J. V. Singler (Eds.), The handbook of Pidgin and Creole studies (pp. 130–157). New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons
• Barragan, B., Castilla-Earls, A., Martinez-Nieto, L., Restrepo, M. A., & Gray, S. (2018). Performance of low-income dual language learners attending English-only schools on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals–Fourth Edition, Spanish. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 49(2), 292–305
• Bergeron-Morin, L., Peleman, B., & Hulpia, H. (2023). Working with multilingual children and families in early childhood education and care (ECEC): Guidelines for continuous professional development of ECEC professionals NESET report, Executive Summary. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. doi: 10.2766/031134
• Berry, J. R., & Oetting, J. B. (2017). Dialect variation of copula and auxiliary verb BE: African American English–speaking children with and without Gullah/Geechee heritage. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research: JSLHR, 60, 2557–2568
• Brea-Spahn, M. R., & Bauler, C. V. (2023). Where do you anchor your beliefs? An invitation to interrogate dominant ideologies of language and languaging in speech-language pathology. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 54(3), 675–687
• Campbell, T., Dollaghan, C., Needleman, H., & Janosky, J. (1997). Reducing bias in language assessment: processing-dependent measures. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research: JSLHR, 40, 519–525
• Canagarajah, S. (2006). Changing communicative needs, revised assessment objectives: testing English as an international language. Language Assessment Quarterly, 3, 229–242
• Cassidy, F. G. (1966). Multiple etymologies in Jamaican Creole. American Speech, 41, 211–215.
• Castilla-Earls, A. P., Restrepo, M. A., Perez-Leroux, A. T., Gray, S., Holmes, P., Gail, D., & Chen, Z. (2016). Interactions between bilingual effects and language impairment: exploring grammatical markers in Spanish-speaking bilingual children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37, 1147–1173
• Castilla-Earls, A., Bedore, L., Rojas, R., Fabiano-Smith, L., Pruitt-Lord, S., Restrepo, M. A., & Peña, E. (2020). Beyond scores: using converging evidence to determine speech and language services eligibility for dual language learners. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(3), 1116–1132
• Champion, T., McCabe, A., & Colinet, Y. D. (2003). The whole world could hear: the structure of Haitian American children's narratives. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 22, 381–400
• Crowe, K., Cuervo, S., Guiberson, M., & Washington, K. N. (2021). A systematic review of interventions for multilingual preschoolers with speech and language difficulties. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research: JSLHR, 64, 4413–4438
• Dollaghan, C., & Campbell, T. F. (1998). Nonword repetition and child language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research: JSLHR, 41, 1136–1146
• Dunn, L. M., & Dunn, L. M. (1997). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, third edition: Manual. Circle Pines, MN: AGS
• Dunn, L. M., Lugo, D. E., Padilla, E. R., & Dunn, L. M. (1986). Test de Vocabulario en Imágenes Peabody (TVIP). Circle Pines, MN: AGS
• Easton, C., & Verdon, S. (2021). The influence of linguistic bias upon speech-language pathologists' attitudes toward clinical scenarios involving nonstandard dialects of English. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 30, 1973–1989
• Eberhard, D. M., Simons, G. F., & Fennig, C. D. (2024). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (27th ed.). SIL International. Accessed December 6, 2024 at: http://www.ethnologue.com
• Fabiano-Smith, L. (2019). Standardized tests and the diagnosis of speech sound disorders. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 4(1), 58–66
• Fabiano-Smith, L., & Hoffman, K. (2018). Diagnostic accuracy of traditional measures of phonological ability for bilingual preschoolers and kindergarteners. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 49, 121–134
• Fabiano-Smith, L., Privette, C., & An, L. (2021). Phonological measures for bilingual Spanish-English–speaking preschoolers: The language combination effect. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research: JSLHR, 64(10), 3942–3968
• Farquharson, J. T., & Miggie, B. (2017). Pidgins and Creoles. New York: Routledge.
• Farrugia-Bernard, A. M. (2018). Speech-language pathologists as determiners of the human right to diversity in communication for school children in the US. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 20, 170–173
• García, O., Skuttnab-Kangas, T., & Torres-Guzmán, M. (Eds.). (2006). Imagining multilingual schools: Languages in education and globalization. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters
• Genesee, F., & Nicoladis, E. (2006). Bilingual acquisition. In: E. Hoff & M. Shatz (Eds.), Handbook of language development (pp. 324–342). Oxford: Blackwell
• Genesee, F., Nicoladis, E., & Paradis, J. (1995). Language differentiation in early bilingual development. Journal of Child Language, 22, 611–631
• Grosjean, F. (2001). The bilingual's language modes. In: J. L. Nicol (Ed.), One mind, two languages: Bilingual Language Processing (pp. 1–22). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell
• Grosjean, F. (2021). Life as a Bilingual: Knowing and Using Two or More Languages. Cambridge University Press
• Gross, M., Buac, M., & Kaushanskaya, M. (2014). Conceptual scoring of receptive and expressive vocabulary measures in simultaneous and sequential bilingual children. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 23(4), 574–586
• Gross, M. C., & Castilla-Earls, A. (2023). Code-switching during narratives by bilingual children with and without developmental language disorder. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 54(3), 996–1019
• Guiberson, M., & Ferris, K. P. (2019). Early language interventions for young dual language learners: a scoping review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 28, 945–963
• Hendricks, A. E., & Adlof, S. M. (2020a). Production of morphosyntax within and across different dialects of American English. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63, 2322–2333
• Hendricks, A. E., & Diehm, E. A. (2020b). Survey of assessment and intervention practices for students who speak African American English. Journal of Communication Disorders, 83, 105967
• Hernández, A. W., Campos, I., & Zyskind, K. Z. (2023). Considerations in utilizing translanguaging practices to meet the language needs of Maya children in U.S. Schools. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 54(2), 379–386
• Holm, J. (1984). Variability of the copula in Black English and its Creole kin. American Speech, 59, 291–309
• Horohov, J., & Oetting, J. (2004). Effect of input manipulations on the word learning of children with and without specific language impairment. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25, 43–65
• Hymes, D. (1971). Pidginization and Creolization of Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Hymes, D. (1972). On communicative competence. In: J. Pride & J. Holmes (eds.), Sociolinguists Selected Readings (pp. 269–293). Harmondsworth: Penguin
• Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C § 1412. (2006)
• International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children's Speech. (2012). Multilingual children with speech sound disorders: Position paper (Research Institute for Professional Practice, Learning and Education (RIPPLE), Charles Sturt University). Accessed December 6, 2024 at: http://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/position-paper
• Irvine-Sobers, G. A. (2018). The Acrolect in Jamaica: The Architecture of Phonological Variation. Berlin, Germany: Language Science Press. Accessed December 6, 2024 at: 10.5281/zenodo.1306618
• Jessner, U. (2017). Multicompetence approaches to language proficiency development in multilingual education. In: O. García, A. Lin, & S. May (Eds.), Bilingual and Multilingual Education (3rd ed., pp. 161–173). Cham: Springer
• Kapantzoglou, M., Brown, J. E., Cycyk, L. M., & Fergadiotis, G. (2021). Code-switching and language proficiency in bilingual children with and without Developmental Language Disorder. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 64, 1605–1620
• Kehoe, M. M., & Cretton, E. (2021). Intraword variability in French-speaking monolingual and bilingual children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 64, 2453–2471
• Kirk, N. W. (2023). MIND your language(s): recognizing minority, indigenous, non-standard(ized), and dialect variety usage in “monolinguals.” Applied Psycholinguistics, 44(3), 358–364
• Kohnert, K. (2010). Bilingual children with primary language impairment: issues, evidence and implications for clinical actions. Journal of Communication Disorders, 43, 456–473
• Kowenberg, S., & Singler, J. V. (2018). Creolization in context: historical and typological perspectives. Annual Review of Linguistics, 4, 213–232
• León, M., Washington, K. N., McKenna, V. S., Crowe, K., & Fritz, K. (2022). Linguistically informed acoustic and perceptual analysis of bilingual children's speech productions: an exploratory study in the Jamaican context. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 65(7), 2490–2509
• Liu, T., Zhang, X., & Jiang, Y. (2020). Family socioeconomic status and the cognitive competence of very young children from migrant and non-migrant Chinese families: The mediating role of parenting self-efficacy and parental involvement. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 51, 229–241
• Marschark, M. (2018). Raising and educating a deaf child (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. Doi: 10.53841/bpsdeb.2009.1.133.36
• Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (2023). Cross-linguistic transfer and ambient phonology: Impact on diagnosis of speech sound disorders in a longitudinal bilingual case study. Journal of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech, 4(3), 311–339
• Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (2024). Diagnosing speech sound disorder in bilingual Vietnamese-English–speaking children: Are English-only assessments sufficient? In: E. Babatsouli (Ed.). Multilingual Acquisition and Learning: Towards an Eco-systemic View of Diversity. John Benjamins Publishing Company
• McCabe, A. (2017). Language and parenting: minority languages in North America. In: N. J. Cabrera & B. Leyendecker (Eds.), Handbook on Positive Development of Minority Children and Youth (pp. 217–230). Cham: Springer
• McDonald, J. L., & Oetting, J. B. (2019). Nonword repetition across two dialects of English: effects of specific language impairment and nonmainstream form density. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 62, 1381–1391
• McLeod, S. (2024). Multilingual Children's Speech. Charles Sturt University. Accessed December 6, 2024 at: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/
• McLeod, S. (Ed.). (2025). The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. Oxford University Press
• McLeod, S., Verdon, S., & The International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children's Speech. (2017). Tutorial: Speech assessment for multilingual children who do not speak the same language(s) as the speech-language pathologist. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 26(3), 691–708
• McLeod, S., Verdon, S., Margetson, K., Tran, V. H., Wang, C., Phạm, B., To, L., & Huynh, K. (2023). Multilingual speech acquisition by Vietnamese-English–speaking Vietnamese-Australian children and adult family members. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 66(7), 2184–2229
• Mills, M. T. (2021). Forum: serving African American English speakers in schools through interprofessional education & practice. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 52(1), 1–3
• Morgan, P. L., Hammer, C. S., Farkas, G., Hillemeier, M. M., Maczuga, S., Cook, M., & Morano, S. (2016). Who receives speech/language services by 5 years of age in the United States? American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 25 183–199
• Morgan, G. P., Restrepo, M. A., & Auza, A. (2013). Comparison of Spanish morphology in monolingual and Spanish-English bilingual children with and without language impairment. Bilingualism, 16, 578–596
• Mufwene, S. S. (2015). Pidgin and Creole languages. In: J. D. Wright (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences (2nd ed., pp. 133–145). Oxford: Elsevier
• Mühlhaüsler, P. (1997). Pidgin and Creole linguistics (2nd ed.). London: University of Westminster Press
• Nair, V., Clark, G. T., Siyambalapitiya, S., & Reuterskiöld, C. (2023). Language intervention in bilingual children with developmental language disorder: a systematic review. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 58(2), 576–600
• Nayeb, L., Lagerberg, D., Sarkadi, A., Salameh, E. K., & Eriksson, M. (2021). Identifying language disorder in bilingual children aged 2.5 years requires screening in both languages. Acta Paediatrica (Oslo, Norway), 110, 265–272
• Oetting, J. B., Berry, J. R., Gregory, K. D., Rivière, A. M., & McDonald, J. (2019). Specific language impairment in African American English and Southern White English: measures of tense and agreement with dialect-informed probes and strategic scoring. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 62, 3443–3461
• Oetting, J. B., Lee, R., & Porter, K. L. (2013). Evaluating the grammars of children who speak nonmainstream dialects of English. Topics in Language Disorders, 33, 140–151
• Oetting, J. B., McDonald, J. L., Seidel, C. M., & Hegarty, M. (2016). Sentence recall by children with SLI across two nonmainstream dialects of English. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 59(1), 183–194
• Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. (2016). Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Special Education: A Multi-year Disproportionality Analysis by State, Analysis Category, and Race/Ethnicity. Accessed December 6, 2024 at: https://www2.ed.gov/programs/osepidea/618-data/LEA-racial-ethnic-disparities-tables/disproportionality-analysis-by-state-analysis-category.pdf
• Paradis, J., Genesee, F., & Crago, M. (2021). Dual Language Development and Disorders: A Handbook on Bilingualism and Second Language Learning (CLI) (3rd ed.). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company
• Poplack, S. (1980). Sometimes I'll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en español: Toward a typology of codeswitching. Linguistics, 18, 581–618
• Pert, S. (2023). Working with children experiencing speech and language disorders in a bilingual context: A home language approach. Routledge. Doi: 10.4324/9781003125563
• Ramirez, J. D., Wiley, T., de Klerk, G., Lee, E., & Wright, W. E. (Eds.). (2005). Ebonics in the urban education debate (2nd ed.). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters
• Rickford, J. R., & Rickford, R. J. (2000). Spoken soul: The story of Black English. New York: John Wiley
• Rickford, J., & Sankoff, G. (2019). Connections between sociolinguistics and pidgin-Creole studies. In: J. R. Rickford (Ed.), Variation, versatility and change in sociolinguistics and Creole studies (pp. 112–119). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Rickford, J., Sweetland, S., Rickford, A., & Grano, T. (2013). African American, Creole, and Other Vernacular Englishes in Education: A bibliographic Resource. New York: Routledge
• Souza Mumy, A. P. G. (2023). Culturally responsive guidelines for serving families of bilingual children who stutter. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 8(1), 164–175
• Surrain, S., & Luk, G. (2019). Describing bilinguals: a systematic review of labels and descriptions used in the literature between 2005–2015. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 22, 401–415
• Taliancich-Klinger, C., Hernandez, N. A., & Maurer, A. (2022). Engaging graduate students in cultural experiences early: the development, implementation, and preliminary student perceptions of a community engagement clinical experience. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 31(2), 539–551
• Telford Rose, S. L., Payne, K. T., De Lisser, T. N., Harris, O. L., & Elie, M. (2020). A comparative phonological analysis of Guyanese Creole and Standard American English: a guide for speech-language pathologists. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 5(6), 1813–1819
• Torres Cacoullos, R., & Travis, C. E. (2015). Gauging convergence on the ground: code-switching in the community. The International Journal of Bilingualism, 19, 365–386
• Verdon, S. (2020). Awakening a critical consciousness among multidisciplinary professionals supporting culturally and linguistically diverse families: a pilot study on the impact of professional development. Child Care in Practice, 26(1), 4–21
• Verdon, S., McLeod, S., & Wong, S. (2015a). Reconceptualizing practice with multilingual children with speech sound disorders: people, practicalities and policy. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 50, 48–62
• Verdon, S., McLeod, S., & Wong, S. (2015b). Supporting culturally and linguistically diverse children with speech, language and communication needs: overarching principles, individual approaches. Journal of Communication Disorders, 58, 74–90
• Washington, J. A., Branum-Martin, L., Sun, C., & Lee-James, R. (2018). The impact of dialect density on the growth of language and reading in African American children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 49, 232–247
• Washington, J. A., & Craig, H. K. (2004). A language screening protocol for use with young African American children in urban settings. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 13, 329–340
• Washington, J. A., & Laramore, G. R. (2023). Empowering families: supporting African American children's reading development. American Educator, 47(3), 46–48.
• Washington, K. N., Crowe, K., Basinger, M., & Farquharson, J. (2025). Jamaican Creole Speech Development. In: Sharynne McLeod (Ed). The Oxford Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. Oxford University Press
• Washington, K. N., Fritz, K., Crowe, K., Kelly, B., & Wright Karem, R. (2019). Bilingual preschoolers' spontaneous productions: considering Jamaican Creole and English. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 50, 179–195
• Washington, K. N., Karem, R. W., Kokotek, L. E., & León, M. (2023). Supporting culturally responsive assessment practices with preschoolers: guidance from methods in the Jamaican context. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 66(12), 4716–4738
• Washington, K. N., Westby, C., Fritz, K., Crowe, K., Karem, R. W., Basinger, M., & Basinger, M. (2021). The narrative competence of bilingual Jamaican Creole- and English-speaking preschoolers. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 52, 317–334
• Westby, C., & Washington, K. N. (2017). Using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health in assessment and intervention of school-aged children with language impairments. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 48(3), 137–152
• Karem, R., Gross, M., Castilla-Earls, A., & Washington, K. N. (2024, Dec 5-7). Capturing code-mixing behaviours using the IPSyn in Spanish-English and Jamaican Creole bilingual children [Conference Presentation]. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Annual Convention, Seattle, WA, United States
• Karem, R. W., & Washington, K. N. (2021). The cultural and diagnostic appropriateness of standardized assessments for dual language learners: a focus on Jamaican preschoolers. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 52(3), 807–826
• Wright Karem, R., Washington, K. N., & Crowe, K. (2022). Cross-linguistic interactions in the spontaneous productions of preschoolers who speak Jamaican-Creole and English. Speech, Language and Hearing London, England , 1–13. Advance online publication . Doi: 10.1080/2050571X.2021.1936914
• Wright Karem, R., Washington, K. N., Crowe, K., Jenkins, A., León, M., Kokotek, L., Raisor-Becker, L., & Westby, C. (2019). Current methods of evaluating the language abilities of multilingual preschoolers: a scoping review using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health–Children and Youth Version. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 50, 434–451
• Wolfram, W. (2007). Sociolinguistic folklore in the study of African American English. Language and Linguistics Compass, 1, 292–313
• Yow, W. Q., Tan, J. S. H., & Flynn, S. (2018). Code-switching as a marker of linguistic competence in bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 21, 1075–1090