Language Use and Development in Third-Person Singular Contexts: Assessment Implications

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this assessment-focused clinical focus article is to increase familiarity with African American English (AAE)–speaking children's pattern of language use in third-person singular contexts and to discuss implications for speech-language assessments of developing AAE-speaking children. Method The clinical focus draws on descriptive case study data from four typically developing child speakers of AAE who are between the ages of 3 and 5 years. The children's data from three different sources—sentence imitation, story retell, and play-based language samples—were subjected to linguistic analyses. Results The three sources of linguistic data offered different insights into the children's production of –s and other linguistic patterns in third-person singular contexts. Conclusions This study underscores the importance of exploring developing child AAE from a descriptive approach to reveal different types of information about patterns of morphological marking in different linguistic contexts, which is crucial in assessing developing AAE. Implications for language assessment are discussed.