Search

Purpose: This study aimed to determine if African American students were disproportionately represented between the years of 2004 and 2014 in the primary disability category of Speech or Language Impairment (S/LI) under the 2004 reauthorized Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. Method: S/LI enrollment data from the Office of Special Education Programs and general enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics were analyzed to compare the risk of primary S/LI category enrollment of African American students to that of all other students. Risk ratios with 99% confidence intervals were calculated for each state across the 10 years studied. Results: An average of 75% of states disproportionately represented African American students in the S/LI category each year; on average, 62% underrepresented African American students, and 14% overrepresented them. A post hoc analysis of the relationship between African American student representation and population densities revealed that states with high African American population densities almost exclusively underrepresented African American students and states with low densities tended toward a proportionate representation. Conclusions: African American students were largely underrepresented in the category of S/LI in the years studied. These findings, alongside historic and chronic overrepresentation in other categories of special education, are discussed in the context of the fragmented harm theory (Payne, 1984; Voulgarides, 2018; Voulgarides, Zwerger, & Noguera, 2013) and the disability rights and critical race theory (Annamma, Connor, & Ferri, 2013).

Purpose: This study explored how typically developing 1st grade African American English (AAE) speakers differ from mainstream American English (MAE) speakers in the completion of 2 common phonological awareness tasks (rhyming and phoneme segmentation) when the stimulus items were consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant (CVCC) words and nonwords. Method: Forty-nine 1st graders met criteria for 2 dialect groups: AAE and MAE. Three conditions were tested in each rhyme and segmentation task: Real Words No Model, Real Words With a Model, and Nonwords With a Model. Results: The AAE group had significantly more responses that rhymed CVCC words with consonant-vowel-consonant words and segmented CVCC words as consonant-vowel-consonant than the MAE group across all experimental conditions. In the rhyming task, the presence of a model in the real word condition elicited more reduced final cluster responses for both groups. In the segmentation task, the MAE group was at ceiling, so only the AAE group changed across the different stimulus presentations and reduced the final cluster less often when given a model. Conclusion: Rhyming and phoneme segmentation performance can be influenced by a child's dialect when CVCC words are used.

Purpose: The purpose of this preliminary investigation was to examine potential barriers to seeking services for communication impairments perceived by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Specifically, this clinical survey investigated (a) the rate and importance of disclosure of membership in the LGBT community by people with communication impairments to their clinicians and (b) the perception of bias of audiologists and speech-language pathologists against LGBT individuals with communication impairments. Method: A total of 192 people identifying as LGBT with a communication impairment responded to a web-based survey. The survey contained questions about the respondents' demographic information, living situation, and experiences with clinical services for communication impairments. In addition, the survey contained open-ended comment sections. Results: There were differences in the responses of LGBT people with speech-language impairments and those with hearing impairments. The majority of respondents did not disclose their membership in the LGBT community, although they felt it was important. Most respondents reported perceiving bias toward a heterosexual orientation from their clinicians. Conclusions: Exploration of issues important to the LGBT community contributes to the growing emphasis on diversity and cultural competency in communication sciences and disorders. Specific clinical recommendations and directions for future research are discussed. (Contains 4 tables.)

Purpose: This study aimed to determine if the number and type of African American English (AAE) features that are spoken in sentences influence speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') judgments of (a) how noticeable the dialect is (dialect detectability) and (b) how understandable a speaker is to others (comprehensibility). Method: Certified SLPs with little conversational experience with AAE were recruited from predominantly Caucasian American school districts in Michigan. They listened to sentences that contained varying amounts and types of AAE phonological features. The SLPs rated the sentences on 5-point scales regarding dialect detectability and comprehensibility. The ratings for the different sentences were compared to determine how the variables contributed to the SLPs' judgments of AAE. Results: Both dialect detectability and comprehensibility ratings were affected by the number of AAE features that were included in the sentences. The types of AAE features consistently affected the comprehensibility ratings but less consistently affected the dialect detectability ratings. Conclusion: Multiple factors may affect SLPs' perceptions of AAE. The outcomes have both theoretical and practical implications.

Purpose: To describe the instructional strategies reported for multicultural/multilingual issues (MMI) education at programs in speech-language pathology and audiology and the perceived ease and effectiveness of doing so. Method: A 49-item questionnaire elicited anonymous responses from administrators, faculty, and teaching clinical supervisors at educational programs accredited by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association in the United States. The data were provided by 731 respondents from 79.6% of 231 accredited U.S. programs. They included instructors who taught courses dedicated to MMI and those who did not. Results: Respondents were generally committed to multicultural instruction, but they varied in their reported instructional practices and perceived levels of preparedness, effectiveness, and needs. General curricular infusion without an MMI-dedicated course was the most common instructional model used. Students were judged to be at least modestly prepared to deal with diversity issues as a result of their multicultural instruction, although current instructional approaches were not viewed as optimal. More positive outcomes were reported by instructors of MMI-dedicated than MMI-nondedicated courses. Conclusion: The instructional models and strategies used for MMI education vary, and programs are challenged by multiple issues in complying with the mandate for MMI curricular infusion. (Contains 2 tables, 2 figures and 2 footnotes.)

Aims: The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) is an 11-item assessment measuring the severity of an individual's stroke. Though neurologists, emergency room physicians, nurses, occupational therapists and physical therapists have completed the certifi cation process for NIHSS administration, no study to date has examined whether speech-language pathologists (SLPs), or those in training, can be certifi ed to administer the NIHSS. The aim of this study was to examine whether SLP graduate student-clinicians could be certifi ed to administer the NIHSS. Methods: Twenty student clinicians achieved Group A certifi cation from the NIHSS training DVD, then were subsequently tested on NIHSS scoring for six patient vignettes from Group B of the training DVD.Findings: No student achieved certifi cation for the Group B patients. Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that basic NIHSS training is not suffi cient to ensure certifi cation. In addition, the minimum requirements for NIHSS certifi cation may not be adequate for any individual to reliably and accurately administer the scale. Measures to facilitate certifi cation are discussed, including the need for extensive clinical exposure to stroke patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]