Examination Of Speech Disfluencies In The Story Generation Narratives Of Bidialectal Children

As language use in the US continues to expand and diversify, concerns have arisen regarding the use of diagnostic criteria for stuttering that were created based on monolingual English-speaking norms. Specifically, research has already revealed that bilingual Spanish-English speaking children are at an increased risk for misdiagnosis of stuttering. The purpose of this study was to determine if bidialectal children who speak African American English (AAE) and Mainstream American English (MAE) are at that same risk. We hypothesized that bidialectal children would speak with a greater frequency and variety of speech disfluencies in their story generation narratives. The story generation narratives of children who speak with no variation (monodialectal), some variation (bidialectal), and strong variation (monodialectal) from MAE were coded for speech disfluencies and analyzed for statistical significance between the three groups. No statistically significant differences were found between any group in the amount or variety of speech disfluencies. This suggests that bidialectal children are not at an increased risk for misdiagnosis of stuttering, and current diagnostic criteria is appropriate for use with this population.