An Investigation of the Influence of Dialectal Interferences on the NSST Scores Obtained by Portland Black Children

• Main Author: Callahan, Margaret J.
• Format: Others
• Published: PDXScholar 1974
• Subjects: Children; Black > Oregon > Portland; Language > Testing; Speech and Hearing Science; Speech Pathology and Audiology
• Online Access: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/2051; https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3051&context=open_access_etds

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if dialectal interference as described by Walter Wolfram (Appendix B) was exhibited by black children in Portland, Oregon when given the NSST by Laura Lee. This author was concerned with syntactical interferences on the expressive portion of this test. A secondary purpose of this investigation was to provide suggested norms for differentiating children with language deficits from children with language differences. Seventy black children with normal speech and language were selected from two public schools, a Head Start Center and a day care center. These children were between the ages of 3-0 to 7-11 and had been screened to determine their race, age, socioeconomic status, and emotional stability. Screening for intelligence was performed at the beginning of the testing situation, before the expressive portion of the NSST was administered. The NSST consists of sentence repetition in response to pictures. The sentences involve grammatical contrasts of increasing difficulty, and can be administered in five to ten minutes. The results of this study did not support the prediction made by this researcher.