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Harry N Seymour

Publications and source records attributed to Harry N Seymour.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2004

The challenge of language assessment for african american english-speaking children: a historical perspective.

The diagnostic problem of how validly to assess the language of children who speak dialects different from Mainstream American English (MAE) has challenged the field of communication disorders for several decades. The key to its solution is to recognize differences due to dialect or development and remove them from the initial diagnosis of a disorder. A new approach to the puzzle, implemented jointly by University of Massachusetts scholars and the Psychological Corporation (TPC), takes two directions: (1) it provides new normative data on African American English (AAE) development, and (2) it proposes a level of analysis deeper than dialect for the discovery of alternate markers of a disorder. We present three objectives for a language assessment instrument designed to solve this longstanding problem: (1) to answer the problem/no problem question for a given child; (2) to provide explanatory data about the nature of the problem; and (3) to achieve objectives 1 and 2 in a way that is culturally and linguistically fair to both speakers of MAE and speakers of other dialects of English such as AAE.

Black or African American↗
PubMed2004

Steps in designing and implementing an innovative assessment instrument.

Preliminary research for innovative assessments valid for both African American English- and Mainstream American English-speaking children suggested a process consisting of two separate tests: (1) a screening test, and (2) a comprehensive test of Syntax, Pragmatics, Semantics, and Phonology. Language probes were designed to accomplish the functions of dialect identification, using highly contrastive features between the dialects, and diagnosis of disorder, which uses noncontrastive elements. The resulting assessment/proposal, which has undergone extensive experimental field testing, differs from existing tests at the level of its individual items and in the process of test construction as a whole.

Black or African American↗
PubMed2004

Dialect identification versus evaluation of risk in language screening.

This article proposes that any dialect-neutral screening test should consist of two parts: one part using contrastive items to screen for Language Variation Status (Mainstream American English [MAE] or a degree of variation from MAE), and a second part using noncontrastive items to screen for degree of risk for language disorder (low, medium, or high). The two scores are interpreted together in forming an overall clinical profile of a child. The implications for further diagnostic testing of both MAE and non-MAE speakers who exhibit risk for language disorder are discussed. Most importantly, for the African American child, viewing the results of the two types of proposed screening items together clears the "variation due to speech and language dialect" issue out of the way so that if further evaluation is needed, it is done for valid reasons, not superficial ones.

Black or African American↗
PubMed2004

A noncontrastive model for assessment of phonology.

The contrastive/noncontrastive model developed by Seymour and Seymour (1977) can be applied to the development of a dialect-sensitive phonological assessment that uses a single scoring and test format, regardless of a child's dialect. Through extensive field research, stimulus items were found that respect the phonotactics of African American English (AAE) (i.e., no targets are final consonants or final consonant clusters), yet are sufficiently demanding to show development in the age range from 4 to 9 years. Consonant clusters of varying levels of phonological difficulty are shown to discriminate between typically developing and phonologically impaired children of different dialect groups, Mainstream American English (MAE) and non-MAE. Implications for further diagnosis and remediation are presented.

Black or African American↗