Black English Speakers Research Articles

Association of Racial Status and Training Language with Baseline Performance and Training Gains During Computerized Training of Technology-related Everyday Functional Skills In Older Adults

ObjectivesResearch consistently finds that lower baseline performance predicts greater gains with computerized training. Lower baseline performance can originate from many factors, including educational and environmental disadvantages, leading to reduced exposure to functional tasks. Across six computerized technology-related functional skills, baseline performance and training gains were compared across race and training language. DesignRandomized clinical trial. SettingAbout 14 community centers in New York City and Miami. ParticipantsParticipants aged 60–90 with diverse ethnic (52% Latinx) and racial (27% Black) status, trained in in English (60%) or Spanish (40%). InterventionRemotely delivered computerized cognitive and skills training (FUNSATTM) for an hour twice a week for up to 12 weeks. MeasurementsCompletion time across all 6 tests pre and post training. ResultsThe total sample included 42 Black English Speakers, 52 White English speakers, and 61 Spanish speakers. Spanish speakers had the poorest baseline performance on all tasks, underperforming English-speaking Latinx participants. However, Spanish speaking participants had the largest training gains. Lower MOCA scores predicted lower baseline performance and greater training gains across samples. Educational attainment predicted training gains only in the Spanish speakers. Despite education effects in this group, all improvements were statistically significant with large effect sizes. ImplicationsLower baseline performance of functional skills was a positive predictor of training gains and was efficiently reversed through training. Even participants who initially appeared more impaired achieved substantial gains, congruent with the results reported in psychiatric populations. Critically, low baseline competence should not be interpreted as reflecting negatively on potential training gains.

Shedding Light on the Outcomes of Minorities in Quebec: The Case of the Education to Employability (E2E) Study

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this study was to observe and analyze the educational experiences of members of the English-speaking Black community in Quebec and how those experiences may have impacted the employability outcomes of participants. More broadly, this study aimed to contribute towards the filling in of certain information gaps pertaining to not just the aforementioned community but racialized and linguistic communities more generally. Background: The article is based on a community research collaboration conducted between the Black Community Resource Centre (BCRC) and the Provincial Employment Roundtable of Quebec (PERT). It followed discussions between the two organizations centering around conducting research on employability and how education factored into employability outcomes. Eventually the decision was made to draft a collaboration agreement and create a research design more concretely. Methodology: Research was conducted by applying a mixed methods approach which incorporated qualitative and quantitative data collection. This was made up of two parts: 1) surveying and collecting educational and employment data from a sample of Quebecers and 2) interviewing participants from the English-speaking Black community in Quebec on their educational and employment experiences. Findings: Firstly, Black survey respondents, irrespective of linguistic identity, recalled receiving more negative actions from their school and school staff compared to survey respondents who did not belong to a visible minority. In particular, Black survey respondents had the highest ratings of specific incidents of discipline/punishment and public shaming/humiliation. These differences between the Black respondents and White respondents were found to be statistically significant after conducting an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Second, English-speaking survey respondents, irrespective of race, recalled higher parental involvement in their education and school experiences. Parental involvement in education was observed at a higher rate for English-speaking respondents than for French-speaking respondents. Focus groups were conducted to provide context and depth to the survey findings. In particular, participants described experiencing a lack of sense of belonging, as well as racism perpetrated by school staff and community. Focus group participants also described an evolving perception of their identity as members of Québec’s ESBC. Focus group participants described negotiating their identities as Black English speakers and as Quebecers, with some describing their Quebecer identity as secondary to their race and language. Impact on Society: The impact of this research is that it was able to generate quantitative data on the outcomes of different racialized groups within the sphere of education and show that amongst the sample of participants, there were statistically significant differences in outcomes across racialized and linguistic groups. Furthermore, it offered a space where highly detailed qualitative data could be collected directly from community members, particularly the English- speaking Black community in Quebec. The long-term impact on society will still run its course but it represents a contribution to the body of knowledge on literature pertaining to this community and in this context while also being able to generate further questions relating to race and language in Quebec and how they impact the educational and employment spheres.

Rethinking “(Under) Performance” for Black English Speakers: Beyond Achievement to Opportunity

We draw on the concept of the opportunity gap explanatory framework in this study to problematize the notion of “(under)performance” of Black American (i.e., African American) and Black immigrant youth. Examining reading literacy achievement results of Black American and Black immigrant youth using a corpus of data from the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), we demonstrate the ways in which these youth self-identified as language speakers on the PISA reading literacy assessment measure, the influence of this self-identification on interpretations of their reading literacy, and the influence of other demographic factors on this achievement across subgroups. We suggest that the disaggregation of data for Black subpopulations can allow for a better understanding of the ways in which demographic, social, and cultural factors impact achievement within specific Black subgroups. We also highlight the need for reframing examinations of Black students’ literacies in ways that are humanizing. Implications for research, practice, and policy are provided.

Accounting for improved prostate cancer mortality outcomes in Haitian men: A histological analysis.

e16557 Background: In a previous wide-ranging study on the outcomes of prostate cancer patients at a safety-net hospital, we discovered significantly improved mortality outcomes for Haitian Creole prostate cancer patients compared to all other languages spoken, including black English speakers, with p = 0.017 [Rand, AE, et al., Clin Genitourin Cancer. (6):455-60 (2014)]. In order to assess any molecular indications that could be contributing to this finding, we performed a histological analysis of prostate cancer specimens, comparing black English-speaking patients to Haitian Creole patients. Methods: We sampled prostatectomies from 34 black English-speaking patients and 38 black Haitian Creole-speaking patients, taken between December 2011 and June 2015. In addition to primary and secondary Gleason scores, extraprostatic extension (EPE), seminal vesicle invasion (SVI), lymphovascular invasion (LVI), and perineural invasion (PNI), we observed any small amounts of grade 5 tissue present for the tertiary Gleason score. Finally, we analyzed the presence of acute and chronic inflammation and inflammatory severity. A chi square analysis was used to compare the categories between the Haitian and non-Haitian sets, with a probability less than 0.05 considered statistically significant. Results: While the null hypothesis was confirmed for primary, secondary, and total Gleason scores, 23.7% of the Haitian samples had a tertiary Gleason score of 5, compared to only 6.3% of non-Haitian samples (p = 0.046). The two populations exhibited similar rates of EPE (p = 0.719), SVI (p = 0.884), and PNI (p = 0.597), with no LVI apparent in any sample. No significant trends were noted in acute vs. chronic inflammation (p = 0.402) or severity of inflammation (p = 0.601). Conclusions: Samples taken from Haitian Creole-speaking patients had a significantly higher rate of grade 5 tertiary Gleason tissue than the non-Haitian patient samples. The presence of a tertiary Gleason score indicates a higher risk of metastasis, yet the Haitian samples do not reveal a greater rate of extraprostatic invasion. Further studies investigating underlying health factors among Haitian patients might be useful in accounting for improved patient outcomes.

Articulation Test Performances of Low-Income, African-American Preschoolers With Communication Impairments

Culturally valid speech and language testing measures for use with African-American children who are speakers of Black English (BE) are limited. An alternative to developing new tests for use with this population is to adapt currently available tests designed for use with standard English speakers. The purpose of this study was to compare the responses of 28 low-income, urban African-American preschoolers from Metropolitan Detroit who were speakers of BE on the Arizona Articulation Proficiency Scale, using a standard English and a BE scoring procedure. The findings indicated that this test does not require a BE scoring adjustment for northern children who are speakers of BE.

Teacher interactions with nonstandard English speakers during reading instruction

This study examined classroom interactions between two second grade teachers, who differed in their knowledge of Black English, in order to determine whether these teachers also differed in their responses to students who showed Strong (high) versus Weak (low) Black and Nonstandard English (NSE) usage. Teachers' knowledge of the phonological, syntactical, and stylistic features of Black English and NSE was found to be significantly related to the way teachers respond to the reading miscues of childen with various amounts of NSE in their speech. In response to Strong speakers of Black English and NSE, the teacher who was more knowledgeable of Black English evidenced more behaviors considered to be supportive of reading development, i.e., behaviors that encourage greater student self-regulation and control over the reading process and greater “depth of processing” by providing more decoding and contextual strategies. The hypothesis that the teacher who is less knowledgeable about Black English would be less constructive and more negative in response to miscues produced by Strong Black English and NSE speakers was partially confirmed. This teacher's responses seemed to be more influenced by the student's level of reading achievement than by their use of NSE. However, students who were both low in reading ability and Strong NSE speakers received more nonsupportive responses from that teacher.

The Implications of Code‐Switching in Black English Speakers

(1988). The Implications of Code‐Switching in Black English Speakers. Equity & Excellence in Education: Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 17-18.

THE INTELLIGIBILITY OF SOCIAL DIALECTS FOR WORKING‐CLASS ADULT LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

This study investigated the intelligibility of three English dialects for 113 working‐class adult English learners in the New York metropolitan area. The relative intelligibility of standard English, New Yorkese, and black English for these students was rated based on comprehension of six tape‐recorded contextualized monologues, two in each dialect. Learner proficiency was rated by cloze procedure, and most students were found to be at the intermediate level. Results showed that English comprehension was significantly affected by dialect. Interestingly, black English was the least intelligible of the three dialects considered in spite of the fact that this population had considerable contact with black English speakers. Also, learner judgments of the speakers on the tapes in terms of job status, friendliness, and appearance paralleled the relative comprehensibility of the speech samples.

On the Origin of Say and Se as Complementizers in Black English and English-Based Creoles

S EVERAL LINGUISTS WORKING on black English have noted the use of the complementizer say; a typical example of this (Rickford 1977, p. 212): They told me say they couldn't get it. In the Gullah dialect this complementizer occurs more frequently and with a wider variety of verbs, e.g., I hear say-, He think say-, We know say(Dillard 1972, p. 121). Dillard has noted the occurrence of this complementizer only among the older speakers of black English, but Rickford (1977) reports it being used by speakers 20-40 years old. The same complementizer has been noted in several English-based creoles which have their roots in Africa. Thus, Edwards (1974, p. 19) reports the following examples from the creole language of San Andr6s Island, Colombia, which he describes as partially descended from Jamaican Creole:

The Ann Arbor Decision: The Importance of Teachers' Attitudes toward Language

The landmark U.S. district court decision Martin Luther King, Jr., Elementary School Children v. Ann Arbor School District Board in July 1979 established the importance of teachers' attitudes toward language. Judge Charles Joiner upheld the claim of eleven black parents that the school system failed to take children's spoken dialect into account and it failed to teach them to read Standard (Kossack 1980, p. 617). The judge further stated that the language barrier is not black English itself, but rather teacher attitudes, which cause black English speakers to feel inferior (Kossack 1980). With the desegregation of many large school systems and the increased mobility within society, more and more teachers will be instructing children whose linguistic heritages may differ from their own. In addition, as the Spanish-speaking population continues to grow, more educational settings are becoming bilingual/bicultural. In light of these current education trends, teachers' attitudes toward language have become a timely and important issue. The purposes of this article are to describe the Ann Arbor decision, to review current

Trade Books for Black English Speakers

Trade Books for Black English Speakers

Attitudes and Training of Public School Clinicians Providing Services to Speakers of Black English

This study investigated public school speech-language clinicians' attitudes regarding treatment goal-setting for children who were speakers of black English, as well as the need for university coursework in social dialects. Questionnaires, based upon Wolfram and Fasold's conceivable goals in teaching standard English to speakers of non-standard dialects, were distributed to the 103 speech-language clinicians employed by the six metropolitan public school systems of Southeastern (Tidewater) Virginia. An examination of responses to the questionnaire items indicated that 97% of the respondents were of the opinion that speakers of black English should learn standard English while retaining the nonstandard dialect. Further information from the questionnaire indicated that only approximately one third of the respondents obtained information regarding dialects from coursework, with the primary source of knowledge being on-the-job experience. Slightly more than two thirds of all respondents indicated a need for formal coursework in social dialects, with the majority of these being recently graduated bachelor's level clinicians with less than six years of professional experience.

The effects of social dialect on auditory sound blending and word recognition

Second-grade black children who speak Black English (B.E.) were compared with black and white age peers who speak Standard English (S.E.) on auditory sound blending and word recognition tasks presented in both B.E. and S.E. form. All groups performed significantly better on an S.E. form of the blending task than a B.E. form. Black English speakers performed better on word recognition of B.E. words than S.E. speakers, but all groups did better overall on S.E. words. The results indicate that B.E. speakers are bidialectal and perform best on S.E. materials in these tasks in a school situation.

Comprehension of pronominal reference by speakers of black English.

This study was concerned with the comprehension of pronoun reference by children from north Texas who used features of black English in their oral language. Forty-eight children were included in the study, eight selected from each chromological age group from four through nine years. Tasks required that the children listen to 15 sentences, five of which included a pronound with unrestricted reference and 10 of which included a pronoun operating under the nonidentity requirement with restricted reference to a subject outside of the sentence. In response to specific questions, subjects were required to point to toy figures that represented the pronoun referents in the sentences. Results showed a significant and uniform increase in comprehension as a function of chronological age, with no subject attaining less than 90% comprehension among the seven-, eight-, and nine-year-old children.

Approximations of selected standard English sentences by speakers of black English.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes in six selected linguistic features as a function of age among children from the North Texas area who utilized features of black English in their oral language. A total of 48 children were tested, with eight selected from each chronological age group from four through nine years. Each subject's sole task was to imitate a series of Standard English sentences. The results indicated that, while a gradual decrease in black English characteristics occurred as a function of age, there was a tendency for the most pronounced dialectal decline in the language of the subjects to occur between six and seven years of age for most of the linguistic features. However, it was observed that black English caracteristics did not completely disappear from the surface structure of even the oldest subjects in the study.

TEACHING STANDARD ENGLISH TO FOUR AND FIVE YEAR OLD INNER CITY BLACK CHILDREN: IMPLICATIONS FOR PERFORMANCE ON TESTS OF ABILITY AND ACHIEVEMENT

In order to render appropriate and meaningful diagnoses of development. It is important for physicians and others involved in the health care of children to be cognizant of assessment instruments being utilized. There is increasing evidence that many tests which are presently used for diagnosis and subsequent placement into special classes are linquistically biased. Typically Black inner city, low income dwellers speak Vernacular Black English which contains significantly different features from the Standard English appearing in evaluational tools.In order to minimize the mismatch and resulting interference which speakers of Black English may encounter when learning to read, it has been theorized that this population may benefit from being taught Standard English before learning to read. The purpose of this study was to determine whether teaching Standard English to Black inner city preschool children affected their performance on a test measuring Standard English competence. The effects of Standard English instruction on a standardized measure of intelligence and general language ability on a language comprehension test were investigated. Particular test items containing taught Standard English features were analyzed and subjects' preferences for Standard English and Vernacular Black English were measured.The sample consisted of 60 low income, four and five year old Black children.

A Test of Proficiency in Black Standard and Nonstandard Speech

As part of the development of a test battery to determine proficiency in Black standard and nonstandard speech, a test was devised consisting of a repetition task. Fifteen sentences in Black standard and fifteen sentences in Black nonstandard English were to be repeated. The sentences were contained within two similar stories recorded on tape by a bidialectal speaker. A Black experimenter administered the test to 35 Black kindergarten children (18 male, 17 female) in the Spring of 1972. Tests were administered individually. The experimenter stopped the tape after each sentence containing a test item and asked the child to repeat the sentence. The response was scored as correct if the child repeated the test item exactly as modeled on the tape. Mean scores were 10.9 on the nonstandard and 11.3 on the standard section of the test, indicating a general balance between standard and nonstandard. The reliability of Section A (nonstandard) of the test was 0.49 (Cronbach a); for Section B (standard) it was 0.43. Subjects were also assigned a balance score (Section A minus Section B), which measured the dominance of nonstandard over standard. Scores of the same students on the Stanford Achievement Test and its subsection on letters and sounds correlated positively and significantly with the standard section of the test. Where there was an imbalance in favor of nonstandard there was a significant negative correlation with the Stanford Achievement Test and its subsection on letters and sounds. This paper reports on the experimental development of a test to measure the language proficiency of children who are speakers of Black English. The test is designed to measure the ability to speak both nonstandard and standard English. Black standard English has been defined as English that follows most of the grammatical rules of standard English but is

A Comparison of the Intonation Patterns of Nonstandard Black English and Standard English

The purpose of this study was to determine if intonation pattern differences exist between Black and Standard English as spoken in a formal (school) situation. Taped speech samples of Black English and Standard English were gathered from seventh and eighth grade males. The interview was divided into script reading and free discourse sections. A total of 60 subjects were interviewed, 30 Black English speakers and 30 Standard English speakers. Samples of declarative and interrogative sentences in both the reading and free discourse situations were rerecorded for analysis. A computer pitch extraction routine and a spectrograph were utilized to develop graphic and tabular data displays. All data are presently undergoing analysis.

Perceptions of Vowel Letter-Sound Relationships by First Grade Children

DESPITE THE NUMBER of approaches used for teaching beginning reading, little is known about the processing strategies ordinary children in regular classrooms use when they learn to connect letters with sounds. In this study black and white children were asked to write either an a, an e, or an i in a number of words. It was concluded that first grade children did not have strong preconceptions of letter-sound relationships when they entered school, that their year-end responses were significantly more like adult responses, and that no significant differences between the responses of speakers of black English and white English were found.

A Writing Seminar for Speakers of Black English

A Writing Seminar for Speakers of Black English