CSD 6: What SLPs need to know about language variation

language variation

diverse ways a language is used across different groups of speakers, influenced by region, social class, individual preferences

dialect

a language variant that is typically associated with a geographic region or group of people

language characteristics affected by a dialect

speech sounds, speech production, accent, semantics (vocab), syntax (word order), morphology (grammar)

GAE

General American English (dialect)

why do SLPs need to understand the rules of dialects

is this person’s speech and language “typically developing”?

does this person have a speech or language disorder?

dialect vs. disorder

if you speak a dialect, we can’t test you because we don’t want to penalize you for that

people not getting treated, but there could also be an overdiagnosis within a dialect population

disorder within dialect

study the population and see what the disorder looks like within the dialect

simultaneous bilinguals

exposed to 2+ languages at birth or shortly after

sequential bilinguals

learn more languages after acquiring their first language

how does the first language affect the learning of a second language in sequential bilinguals?

may affect word order and accent in the second language

how does language development differ in monolingual and bilingual children

by 12 mo, bilingual children understand words in both languages

bilingual 13 mo understand more words than monolinguals

bilingual 12 mo use the prosodic patterns of their parents (early code switching)