Black English and Standard American English Constrasts in Consonantal Development of Four and Five-Year Old Children

Abstract

Four- and five-year old black and white children of black English and standard American English backgrounds, respectively, were administered a standard articulation test. A contrastive analysis revealed phonological differences in consonantal development between the two dialectal groups. However, contrasts were reflected more in number of developmental errors than in form of errors. Thus, the extent of differences noted between adult phonologies of black English and standard American English were less evident in emerging phonologies since unique error types were not exclusively characteristic of either group. These findings have implications for articulation testing of black English speaking children who have not acquired their adult phonology.