Speech Difference or Disability: Overlap or Not?
by
Marlene Schoenberg and Marilyn Fairchild
When average American listeners
find a child or an adult from another country difficult to understand,
they often can’t figure out
if they are hearing the sounds and melody of a different language
or the struggles of a speech disability. One employee said that
his new acquaintance sounded British, but the new co-worker was actually
hearing impaired.
Let’s compare two adults born outside the U.S. An African
woman has an unusual cultural voice. The question becomes, “Is
this typical for her language group or is there a vocal pathology?” An
Asian college student has many more speech sound differences
than classmates from his native country. How can a concerned
parent or professional tell if these are typical English as a
second language (ESL) patterns or not?
Now, let’s compare two
bilingual children. The first is a bright second grader, adopted
from Japan, who has been in the U.S. for just one month. He doesn’t
talk at all, even though he was a top English student in Tokyo.
Contrast this with another
child, age four, from Europe, who has learned English as her fourth
language. She says /t/ instead of the /k/ sound (e.g. /tuti/for “cookie”)
in all four languages. Does either of them have a speech therapy
issue beyond basic English language learning? What do you think?
The Japanese boy was
going through a natural silent period experienced by many international
children new to the U.S. Within a few months, he was explaining
rules for complex games and telling “The
Three Bears” story.
The four-year-old girl had a mild sound-sequencing problem that
required intense treatment to correct. The average general language
stimulation activities were not enough. This is where ESL and speech
difficulties overlap.
Currently, one third of the people in the United States are people
of color. Some have been born here, and some have immigrated from
other countries. Seven per cent have speech and language disabilities.
Those populations intersect in our schools.
Professors Kohnert and Glaze and their research team at the University
of Minnesota published an article in August 2003 on diverse populations
being served by speech/language pathologists. They quoted statistics
from the year 2000 census data, reporting that 10 per cent of the
U.S. population, or 28 million people, were born outside the U.S.
According to Celeste Roseberry-McKibbin,
a professor at California State University in Fresno, California,
87 million people throughout the U.S.. considered themselves to be
of diverse backgrounds, indicating a 43 per cent increase from 1990.
Across the United States in the school year 2000-01, there were 4,584,946
students with Limited English Proficiency enrolled in U.S. public
schools.
Kohnert and Glaze continue
to provide statistics a little closer to home. They note that international
immigration in the year 2000 accounted for over one third of Minnesota’s population growth.
Between 1990 and 2000, Minnesota’s Latino population grew by
166 per cent. Minneapolis now has the largest population of Somalis
outside of Somalia.
In the year 2000, 60 per cent of the children in the Minneapolis
schools were Latino, African- American, African or Asian; 19 percent
of the Minneapolis public school population and 32 per cent of the
St. Paul K-12 population were English Language Learners.
According to Elizabeth Watkins, State of Minnesota Director of ELL
(English Language Learners) and Minority Issues, Division of Special
Education, in 1999-2000 there were 4,866 students in Minnesota with
Limited English Proficiency (LEP) entering public kindergartens.
Educational speech/language pathologists carefully screen pre-school
children for speech language disorders. These knowledgeable and dedicated
professionals confer and co-ordinate with other team members to make
sure they do not under identify or over identify children who may
have speech problems beyond ESL. Some situations can be very ambiguous.
What factors may account
for some children learning English faster than others? According
to Brown (1980), the amount of time that the child spends speaking
English with English-speaking peers is the key factor. If children
have a poor language foundation in their native language, due to
lack of stimulation, English will also be more difficult to learn.
The quality of caregiver interactions and socioeconomic status
can contribute to children’s ease of English
language acquisition. Literacy is easier to acquire in a second language
if you are already a reader in your native language.
The multicultural speech language pathologist must become a detective
and ask questions about how and where the child uses the languages
s/he speaks. Speech pathologists will often observe children in their
natural environments to see how they are communicating in both languages.
We interview adults who know the children well to get a complete
view of their communication skills. There may be periods of code
switching, or using a combination of languages. Interpreters play
a valuable role, too.
Standardized tests are only valid if they are culturally sensitive.
Elizabeth Pena discusses the degree of modifiability as another factor
in determining language difference or disability. She looks at how
easily children can respond to sample language models as a distinguishing
feature.
A Combination of ESL and Speech /Language Disorders
If there is a language
disability in the first language, it also shows up in the second
language. Severe disabilities are generally obvious but minor
disabilities, which may have major effects on learning and behavior,
are more difficult to pinpoint and diagnose in a different cultural
context.
Hearing impairment interferes with learning English by preventing
phonetic acquisition of certain sounds and limiting the ease
of vocabulary development.
Sound sequencing problems
(oral or verbal apraxia) also limit vocabulary development. Often
the student doesn’t know how to say a word
and misses out on the meaning. Sometimes there are sounds that students
avoid because they seem too difficult to learn. There may be cognitive
delays or memory problems.
Carryover of Childhood Speech Disabilities
in Native Language to Later Life - Work in English
Due to lack of infrastructure
in war-torn countries, some children never received the speech
therapy they needed. Therapy might not have been available if they
lived in a remote village. It’s
also possible that speech improvement wasn’t culturally relevant.
Sometimes different cultural views about what constitutes a disorder
may have prevented parents from seeking treatment for their children
while they were growing up. A severe stutterer may never have sought
out help because he didn’t want to be perceived as having “mental
problems.”
Some adults have kept their verbal communication problems in check
by carefully controlling their environments. Hidden speech problems
may come out in unusual ways such as avoiding or being overly sensitive
about certain situations or listeners. Sometimes adult workers may
not want to take a promotion for fear it will put them in their worst-case
scenario.
They painstakingly construct their world by avoiding situations
that contribute to the problem. Social stress, fear of authority
figures or public speaking can bring a relapse of speech issues that
they thought they had previously resolved.
Perhaps with an encouraging referal by a sympathetic supervisor
or colleague, they can become ready to tackle their speech challenges.
Reframing the assistance in a positive light makes a difference.
Any individual who has speech and language difficulties beyond the
usual ESL patterns, whether an adult or a child, would benefit from
an evaluation by a bilingual speech language pathologist or a multicultural
speech/language consultant. Having testing done in both languages,
often with an interpreter, and comparing the results gives a clearer
picture of therapeutic or training needs.
Some cultures may interpret
speech disabilities as a burden to bear silently or a stigma of
shame. Others associate these differences with evil spirits. With
the right evaluation and therapy or training, people with speech
disabilities from different cultures don’t
have to suffer from traditional limitations. They can have a better
quality of life and maintain their cultural integrity. With support,
they can take control and break though their self-imposed limitations.
They can get the help they need and be recognized as valuable contributors
to their communities.
Common Speech/Language
Differences That Do Not
Indicate a Speech Disorder
Linguists have compiled detailed
lists of the usual phoneme patterns of every language. Here are some
of the most common linguistic features that are cross cultural and
based on the quirks of English.
Grammar and Word Choice:
1. Omission of final /s/ for plurals
2. Omission of final /ed/ for past tense
3. Words in a different order- (“Dress blue” is a direct
translation from the Spanish “vestida azul”)
4. Omitting “is” (The to be verb is not found in some
Asian languages)
5. Idiomatic expressions that don’t make sense to the American
listener (either direct translations or combined forms - ”He
hit me at the punch bowl) / He beat me to the punch")
5. Unusual word choices (A speaker may say, “Take off your
clothes.” instead of “Take off your coat.”)
Common Sound Differences Across
Cultures:
1. /d/ or /z/ for /th/ dem or zem for them
2. v/w as in “Vey cool!”
3. i/I as in “How does it feet (fit)?”
4. a/ae hot/hat (especially from British speaking countries)
In Asian languages:
1. /l/r/ Do you have the correction or the collection?
Speech/Language Problems Beyond
ESL Issues: Some of these red flags may be ambiguous and require
the careful attention of an experienced professional to sort out.
1. Sounds other than the expected language specific phoneme patterns
are misarticulated.
2. Hesitations are natural, but volleys of syllable repetitions
or revisions that interfere with the message are not. This may show
up at varying levels of the second language proficiency.
3. The silent period
lasts much longer than expected. It’s
natural for children who first come here not to speak for a while
and concentrate on comprehension. Linguist Robert Ellis notes that
this averages three months. However, it may last up to a year for
a child who is afraid to take even small risks.
4. The usual ESL teaching techniques do not seem to be working.
5. Students are not picking up much on their own, but only learning
what is taught in their best modality.
6. Students need many
more repetitions and models than their same language peers before
they “get it.”
7. Students may show unusual posturing or quivering of the lips
or the tongue when trying too hard. This is an indication of apraxia,
which is an oral motor sequencing problem.
8. Students may have
excess nasality or snorting sounds, (Not just assimilation nasality
based on their own language’s system
as in Hmong). Snorting sounds might indicate palatal problems.
