Oral language expectations for African American children in grades 1 through 5.
Reference profiles for characterizing the language abilities of elementary-grade African American students are important for assessment and instructional planning. H. K. Craig and J. A. Washington (2002) reported performance for 100 typically developing preschoolers and kindergartners on 5 traditional language measures: mean length of communication units, amount of complex syntax production, number of different spoken words, responses to wh-questions, and understanding of active/passive sentence construction. The present study reports performances on the same measures for 295 typically developing African American children in the 1st through 5th grades. Findings revealed increasing performance scores with increasing grades on 4 of the tasks. A ceiling effect was evident on the task that assessed comprehension of active and passive voice. Gender, socioeconomic status, and community influenced the values in systematic ways, and responses to requests for information varied relative to vocabulary skill. These measures are recommended for inclusion in culturally fair assessment protocols designed to characterize the language abilities of elementary-grade African American students.
University Center for the Development of Language and Literacy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109-2054, USA. hkc@umich.edu
Holly K
HK
Craig
Julie A
JA
Washington
Connie A
CA
Thompson
D000124:Achievement; D001741:Black or African American; D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011932:Reading; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D012923:Social Class