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Chapter 4 Families from African American Backgrounds
By: Erin Ammendola
General Background Information
General Background Facts
FACT #1
Unfortunately, experiences of institutional racism and continued economic oppression in the U.S. will impact the lives of African American across the socioeconomic spectrum. Historical adversity, which includes sharecropping, slavery, and race based exclusion from educational, social, health, and economic resources, translates into socioeconomic disparities experienced by African Americans in the U.S.
FACT #2
Whites and African Americans differ in their views relating to the amount of discrimination being experienced in the U.S. Whites tend to believe that discrimination is much less common than it actually is (Goode, et al
Although socioeconomic status (SES) plays an important role in individualizing experiences of middle-and low SES African Americans, the set of cultural experiences that is common to many of them is the history of forced abduction from their homelands, slavery, and the racism and discrimination that still exist today. (Goode, Jones, & Jackson, 2011)
FACT #4
In early African religions, ancestors and spirits of nature were worshiped. Religion has traditionally played an important role in African American communities in the U.S. and it is integral to the lives of many African Americans today. African Americans often come from traditional Christian backgrounds, including the Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopal denominations.
FACT #5
African American Family Life
Families from African American backgrounds may include blood relatives and others who are not blood relatives but have special caring relationships. Many African Americans have extended family networks that provide economic and emotional support.
FACT #1
Fifty four percent of African American children live with a single parent, while 38% live with two parents (Pew Social Trends, 2015). Many more African American children are being raised by grandparents in today's society. More than 1.3 million African Americans age 45 and older are living with and raising grandchildren, and many of these grandparents live in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017b).
FACT #2
Most African American families value obedience to parents, older siblings, and other older persons. They place great emphasis on respect for elders, who are seen as having hindsight and wisdom. Most families expect young children to treat others well, to obey family rules, and to work hard in school.
FACT #3
African American families tend to use an approach to child-rearing that is more authoritative than in some other groups. Many families make frequent use of disciplinary practices to teach children appropriate behavior (Goode et al., 2011) Mothers may be firm and physical in their discipline. Firm discipline accompanied by love and affection is common in many African American homes.
FACT #4
In some African American families, a matriarch or grandmother figure takes much of the responsibility for raising more than one generation of children. This matriarch has a strong influence on the actions of family members.
FACT #5
Education and Literacy
The educational attainment gap between African Americans and Whites is narrowing. Today, 84.7% of the African American population age 25 and over has a high school diploma; 20.2% of African Americans age 25 and over have a bachelor's degree, while 1.9 million have an advanced degree (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017b).
FACT #1
The crisis in the education of African Americans has increased significantly in urban neighborhoods where public schools lack resources, experience overcrowding, exhibit a racial achievement gap, and have policies that fail to deliver adequate opportunities for success. In the view of some experts, some poorly performing schools serve as pipelines to prison for youths (Word Press, 2017)
FACT #2
Some African American students communicate and interact in a style that is persuasive, animated, and confrontational. These individuals may feel uncomfortable in classroon settings where they are expected to sit quietly for long periods of time, to complete tasks independently, and to follow specific rules regarding how they interact with others
(Sue & Sue, 2016)
FACT #3
Mainstream professionals may see the communication style of African American students as aggressive or even as unacceptable conduct and may inappropriately penalize the students. According to Monroe (2005), African American youth are 2-5 times more likely to be suspended from school and often receive harsher consequences for "misbehavior" than their White peers.
FACT #4
Some African American students have difficulty in school because the language used in instruction and in books differs from the spoken language as it is used in their community. These children may use African American English (AAE) in their community and home, although school teachers conduct classes in Mainstream American English (MAE) and often expect students to use "standard English" at school.
FACT #5
Because of their language differences, students who speak AAE may struggle with reading, writing, and spelling. Learning to spell can be especially difficult (Harris & Moran, 2006). Learning differences resulting resulting from lack of experience with the "school dialect" may be a factor contributing to the over-representation of African American students in special education programs is well documented.
FACT #6
However, metalinguistic knowledge (e.g., the ability to codeswitch) may also be a factor in children's literacy achievement. Children who have the ability to codeswitch easily between their dialect and MAE may develop better literacy skills than children who have weak codeswitching abilities.
FACT #7
Health Care and Disabling Conditions
Approaches to health care vary depending on the income and/or educational level of individual families. Some African Americans, especially in the rural south, rely on home remedies or holistic health approaches in which herbs, roots, teas, and natural foods are used (Goode et al., 2011)
FACT #1
Major inner city areas of the United States are comprised primarily of African Americans. These areas have limited services, poor housing, unemployment, crime, poverty, overcrowding, and illegal drug activities. All of these phenomena have negative implications for health.
FACT #2
African American children from low-income families are often exposed to harmful environmental pollutants such as lead, air pollution, and ambient noise. These exposures can negatively impact their health and, in turn, their academic performance in school.
FACT #3
Characteristics
- Eye contact is used as a form of communication. However, rolling of the eyes during conversation may be viewed as offensive.
- Some African Americans may not observe traditional turn taking rules during conversations. It is acceptable to interrupt if a participant feels a need to add valuable information. Abruptly changing the topic is also acceptable.
- African American culture encourages many communication rituals and distinctive styles that affirm cultural identity and allegiance to the group. One example is "call and response", in which the listener echo part of the speaker's previous utterance.
African American Communication Styles
African American English Considerations
- Use of AAE is influenced by geographic region, socioeconomic status, education, gender, and age.
- Ivy and Masterson (2011) found that the writings of children who spoke AAE were characterized by the absence of such morphemes as:
- plural -s
- third person singular -s
- possessive
- past tense -ed
- copula "is" and "are"
Characteristics
Misconceptions About African American English
All African Americans speak AAE
Some African Americans speak AAE and some do not. Some codeswitch back and forth because MAE and AAE depending on context.
Misconception #1
AAE is only spoken by African Americans
AAE can be spoken by people of any ethnic and linguistic background. Non-African Americans may speak AAE if their primary peer group is composed of African Americans.
Misconception #2
AAE is a substandard form of Mainstream American English
Historically, the language patterns of African Americans have been viewed as "deficient". A major premise of this view was that African Americans lacked the cognitive abilities necessary to learn the grammatical rules of the English language. Many viewed the language patterns of AAE speakers as "improper English." AAE is now recognized as a fully developed language system with its own structure and rules (Wyatt, 2015).
Misconception #3
AAE should be eradicated so that children can become proficient in MAE.
It is possible to learn Mainstream American English without eradicating African American English. Some experts believe that speakers of AAE should become "bilingual" or "bidialectal" so that they can speak both AAE and MAE fluently. In this optimal situation, students can preserve their culture, heritage, and community dialect while simultaneously learning the style of speaking required in school and in various types of social interactions.
Misconception #4
Speakers of AAE can be adequately assessed with standardized tests of intelligence, language, etc. if a representative sample is included in the norming population.
Many published assessment instruments used in schools were developed and standardized on student populations consisting primarily of White, middle class, monolingual English speakers. These tests, especially those designed to assess aspects of grammar and sentence production, have been criticized by numerous experts as being inappropriate for use with African American children and other cultural groups.
Misconception #5
When AAE speakers are tested it is critical to differentiate which aspects of their speech and language are reflective of AAE rules and which aspects are indicative of a disorder. It is illegal for an SLP in the public schools to enroll AAE speakers for "remediation" of speech-language "disorders" if the goal of intervention is to teach MAE grammar.
Bias in Assessment Measures
- Bias in sentence repetition tasks
- Bias in articulation and phonological tasks
- Bias in grammatical closure tasks
- Bias in receptive grammatical tasks
- Bias in grammatical judgement tasks
Factors to Consider in Assessment
- If an African American student feels intimidated by a school professional's questions, his responses may provide limited information, possibly causing the professional to conclude, inappropriately, that the student has limited expressive language skills.
- Mainstream clinicians must remember that African American students' pragmatics and narrative skills may differ markedly from those of MAE. Professionals must be familiar with the narrative strategies used by typical AAE-speaking children.
- The Narrative Assessment Protol (NAP) has been shown to be a valid assessment tool for children who speak AAE, as have other assessments of narrative ability.
- Other alternative forms of assessment (nonstandardized measures) that can be used to assess the presence of communication disorders in African American students include contrastive analysis, a description of the child's functional communication skills, and language sample analysis.
- Professionals can administer a test created specifically for use with African American children. The Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation (DELV) is designed to be dialectically neutral with respect to AAE and can be used with children between 4 and 9 years of age. When SLPs use this instrument, a child who speaks AAE can be identified as being at risk for a language impairment without being penalized for using features of AAE.
- It is important to establish a good personal relationship with clients and families. I have found that a caring attitude, willingness to listen, and warm, personal touch can be extremely facilitative.
- Professionals should address students' needs with a family-focused approach to intervention. Families may be experiencing stress because of health and safety hazards, poverty, lack of access to medical care, etc. It is best to utilize the strong family support system that exist within many African American families when helping them to achieve specific goals.
- Resources available through churches and other religious organizations can often be used as allies in intervention. These resources are often more helpful than agencies that the family have never used. Church personnel frequently have an understanding of a family's dynamics and living conditions.
- When teaching African American students, professionals should remember that learning may be enhanced through the use of auditory and kinesthetic techniques in a high-energy, fast paced atmospher with a varied format.
- Because African American culture emphasizes cooperation and sharing rather than competition, cooperative learning activities benefit many African American students.
Implications for Professionals
Cultural Competence
Understand the characteristics of the individuals served (e.g., age, demographics, cultural and linguistic diversity, educational history and status, medical history and status, cognitive status, physical and sensory abilities) and how they relate to clinical services.
Anticipated learning objects
1. Define and provide examples of health and educational disparities in the United States, as well as identify the causes of disparities.
2. Identify the potential biases associated with assessment procedures and to describe alternative assessment techniques including formal and informal procedures.
The Council on Academic Accreditation (CAA)
Questions to Consider...
Things to Consider
1. Many African American students respond best to intervention methods that:
A. Require that they sit still and demonstrate "good" behavior.
B. Incorporate many kinesthetic and auditory cues.
C. Include African American music, history, and cultural materials.
D. Allow students to recieve individual therapy so that they get one-to-one attention from an adults.
E. Are fast-paced and varied.
Question #1
Which of the following are recommended as nonbiased, valid assessments of the communication skills of speakers of AAE?
Question #2
A. Language samples
B. Narratives assessment
C. Verbal portion of a standardized IQ test
D. Norm-referenced tests standardized on a national sample
E. Fill-in-the-blank expressive morphology tasks.
On this same form, the teacher states that "Ganesha also has poor grammar. I'm concerned that this will interfere with her reading and writing." He gives several examples. Which one of the following utteraces would NOT be typical for a speaker of AAE?
Question #3
A. My daddy done buy the groceries.
B. They ain't no be gonna havin' a good time.
C. That might be my friend pencil.
D. We be readin' our books in class.
E. Those mice is gettin' chased by the car.
Which of the following would be considered inappropriate in service delivery to African American students and their families?
Question #4
A. Giving students nicknames to help them feel special (e.g., calling Ganesha "Nesha")
B. Calling family members by their first names to establish a cordial, comfortable relationship.
C. Helping families develop strategies for reading and telling stories to their children.
D. Asking for the parents' consent to conduct an assesment.
E. Expecting the student to answer questions that can be answered by the parent
A teacher refers Treshaun, a kindergarten African American boy to you. The teacher has difficulty understanding the student's speech and reported that "he doesn't always pronounce his sounds correctly." Which of the following would NOT be typical for an AAE-speaking child and could be a sign of a speech sound disorder?
Question #5
A. I'm gonna axe him to go.
B. We walkin' to the store.
C. The dentist cleaned mah teef.
D. The wed wabbit hop across the cage.
E. I tink he can come.
Survey of assessment and intervention practices for students who speak African American English
www.elsevier.com/locate/jcomdis
Research
Basis: Little being known, however, about the extent to which SLPs implement these methods into their clinical practice. The current study explores the assessment and intervention practices used by SLPs in two states in the US for students who speak African American English (AAE), including the types and frequency of clinical practices. 247 SLPs completed an online survey regarding clinical practices for students who speak AAE as well as a questionnaire regarding their knowledge of the linguistic features of AAE.
Results: This study revealed that SLPs modify intervention practices less often than they modified assessment practices, and SLPs’ knowledge of culturally relevant intervention practices, such as including materials with characters with similar skin tones, culturally relevant themes, and common prior experiences, appears to be limited based on these data from this survey.