FPG Child Development Institute

African American English and its Relation to Literacy Skills in Early Adolescence

Information about the AAE study

Overview

African American English (AAE) and its Relation to Literacy Skills in Early Adolescence is part of the Teens in School Project, is a longitudinal research study of factors that influence African American youth's school success. This extension of our research examines the production and development of AAE, the potential impact of vernacular dialect on the literacy acquisition of African Americans from entry to school through middle school, and the youth, family, and school factors that may affect this linkage. We are currently following 2 groups of African American youth and their families: 70 youth who we have been following since infancy and 70 youth who we have been following since middle school.

The African American English (AAE) and its Relation to Literacy Skills in Early Adolescence project is a program of the FPG Child Development Institute of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Please contact csweb@fpg.unc.edu with any questions or concerns.

The project is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Aims of the Study

  1. To describe the extent to which African American children use AAE from the preschool through middle school years, and to determine how selected family, peer, and school factors are associated with level and patterns of change in AAE use over time.
  2. To examine the extent to which the formality of the context influences vernacular variation among African American youth in the middle school years.
  3. To determine the role of vernacular dialect in the development of African American youth's reading skills from kindergarten through middle school years.
  4. To determine the role of vernacular dialect in African American youth's reading skills during the middle school years.

Staff

Joanne Roberts
Principal Investigator
Senior Scientist, FPG
Dr. Roberts is a Senior Scientist at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute with faculty appointments at UNC in Speech and Hearing Sciences and in Pediatrics. She directs the Teens in School Project and Carolina Communication Project. She also is Co-Director of a post-doctoral training program at UNC in neurodevelopmental disorders. Her research interests are in how otitis media (ear infections) affect children's hearing, language, and academic skills, the role of language skills and child and family factors in affecting the school success of African American children, and the language skills of young males with fragile syndrome.

Walt Wolfram
Co-Principal Investigator
Friday Professor, North Carolina State University
Dr. Wolfram has been actively engaged in the study of AAE for over three decades. Of his 18 books and more than 250 published articles on American dialects are several books and more than 50 articles on AAE. He has conducted research related to the developmental acquisition of AAE, as well as recent work on the regional context of earlier and present-day. His current research on the English of African Americans in historically isolated contexts such as the Outer Banks of North Carolina and the Appalachian mountain range challenges hypotheses on the earlier evolution of AAE and assumptions about the path of dialect change in AAE in the twentieth century.

Susan Zeisel
Investigator and Project Coordinator
Dr. Zeisel is a pediatric nurse practitioner and educator. In addition to being an investigator at FPG, Dr. Zeisel holds an adjunct faculty position in the School of Nursing. She has coordinated the Teens in School Project since its beginning. Her research interests include the epidemiology of otitis media, mother-child relationships, factors influencing African American children's success, and health beliefs in children.

Margaret Burchinal
Senior Scientist and Director of Data Management and Analysis Center and Statistician
Dr. Burchinal's background is in psychology and she is a nationally recognized expert in statistical modeling, especially for longitudinal data. Her other research interests include studying the effects of child care on cognitive, academic, and social development and family and school predictors of children's development outcomes for at-risk children. In addition Dr. Burchinal is a research professor in the Department of Psychology and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics.

Dr. Sandra Jackson
Assistant Professor at North Carolina Central University in the Department of Communication
Dr. Jackson brings expertise in the and scoring of speech and language assessments and in the use of AAE by children.

J. Michael Terry
Assistant Professor Assistant Professor at North Carolina Central University in the Department of Communication
Michael Terry's principal area of interest is natural language semantics. His current research involves investigating the formal semantic properties of Tense and Aspect in African-American English. His other areas of interest include negation, and definiteness and specificity.

Anne 0. Taylor
Research Assistant
Ms. Taylor graduated from UNC with a BA in Psychology. She assists with preparation of grants and other materials and scores assessments.

Jenille Adams, MA
Research Assistant
Jenille Adams is a Social Research Assistant on our project. She earned her B.S. in Psychology from Howard University in 2001 and her M.A. in Developmental Psychology from Duke University in 2006. She has extensive experience in not only conducting innovative child development research and assessments but also in working with young people through numerous enrichment programs aimed at helping students develop academically and socially. Her educational and research background has focused on developing effective ways to promote academic success among students with an acute focus promoting positive outcomes for youth developing in low resource communities.

Jennifer Renn
Graduate Student
Jennifer Renn is a doctoral student in Linguistics. Her Master's thesis, Measuring Style-shift: A Quantitative Analysis of African-American English examined AAE forms using data from this project. Ms. Renn modified the coding system for the project and continues to use it to code data. In addition she trains and supervises students in transcription and coding.

Eloise Neebe
Computer Analyst
Dr. Neebe is a computer analyst with over 20 years of experience in computer programming and research database design. She supervises the FPG data management group, and directly participates in the work of a variety of FPG projects including the Teens in School project.

Jan Misenheimer
Applications Analyst
Jan Misenheimer is an Applications Analyst in the FPG data management group. She handles the data for the Teens in School project and projects that study the speech and language skills of young males with Fragile X Syndrome. She joined FPG in 2002.

Publications

Language and Academics

  1. Roberts, J. E., Medley, L. P., Swartzfager, J. L., & Neebe, E. C. (1997). Assessing the communication of African American one-year-olds using the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 6(2), 59-65.
  2. Roberts, J. E., Burchinal, M. R., Zeisel, S. A., Neebe, E. C., Hooper, S. R., Roush, J., Bryant, D., Mundy, M., & Henderson, F. W. (1998). Otitis media, the caregiving environment, and language and cognitive outcomes at two years. Pediatrics, 102(2), 346- 352.
  3. Roberts, J. E., Burchinal, M., & Durham, M. (1999). Parents' report of vocabulary and grammatical development of African American preschoolers: Child and environmental associations. Child Development, 70(1), 92-106.
  4. Roberts, J. E., Burchinal, M. R., Jackson, S. C., Hooper, S. R., Roush, J., Mundy, M., Neebe, E., & Zeisel, S. A. (2000). Otitis media in early childhood in relation to preschool language and school readiness skills among African American children. Pediatrics, 106(4), 1-11.
  5. Jackson, S. C., & Roberts, J. E. (2001). Complex syntax production of African American preschoolers. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 44(5), 1083-1096.
  6. Roberts, J. E., Burchinal, M. R., & Zeisel, S. A. (2002) Otitis media in early childhood in relation to children's school-age language and academic skills. Pediatrics, 110(4), 1-11.
  7. Hooper, S.R., Roberts, J.E., Zeisel, S.A., & Poe, M. (2003). Core language predictors of behavioral functioning in early elementary school children: Concurrent and longitudinal findings. Behavior Disorders, 29(1), 10-24.
  8. Poe, M.D., Burchinal, M., & Roberts, J. (2004). Early language and the development of children’s reading skills. Journal of School Psychology, 42, 315-332.
  9. Roberts, J., Jurgens, J., & Burchinal, M. (2005). The role of home literacy practices in preschool children’s language and emergent literacy skills. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 48, 345-359.
  10. Price, J.R., Roberts, J.E., & Jackson, S.C. (2006). Structural development of the fictional narratives of African American preschoolers. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in School, 37, 178-190.
  11. Wallace, I.F., Roberts, J.E., Zeisel, S.A., Kasambria, D., & Nelson, L. (in review). Communication skills and their relation to peer relationships and social competence: A longitudinal study.

Linguistics

  1. Wolfram, W, (in press). "Sociolinguistic myths in the study of African American English.", Linguistic and Language Compass.
  2. Wolfram, W, (in press) "The African American English canon in sociolinguistics.", In Michael Adams and Anne Curzan (Eds), Contours of English and English Language Studies: Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press
  3. Wolfram, W. (in press) "African American English and the Public Interest.", Jo Anne Kleifgen and George Bond (Eds), Multiple Language and Literacies: Symposium on African and Diasporic Languages and Education, New York: University of Columbia Press
  4. Wolfram, W. (in press) "Language diversity and the public interest”, Natalie Schilling-Estes and Kendall King (eds), GU Round Table on Languages & Linguistics, GURT 06, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press

Psychology/Education

  1. Hooper, S. R., Burchinal, M. R., Roberts, J. E., Zeisel, S. A., & Neebe, E. C. (1998). Social and family risk factors for infant development at one year: An application of the cumulative risk model. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 19(1), 85- 96.
  2. Burchinal, M. R., Roberts, J. E., Hooper, S., & Zeisel, S. A. (2000). Cumulative risk and early cognitive development: A comparison of statistical risk models. Developmental Psychology, 36(6), 793-807.
  3. Burchinal, M. R., Roberts, J. E., Hooper, S., & Zeisel, S. A. (2000). Cumulative risk and early cognitive development: A comparison of statistical risk models. Developmental Psychology, 36, 793-807.
  4. Burchinal, M.R., Roberts, J.E., Hooper, S., & Zeisel, S.A. (2000). Cumulative risk and early cognitive development: A comparison of statistical risk models. Developmental Psychology, 36(6), 793-807.
  5. Burchinal, M., Roberts, J.E., Zeisel, S.A., Hennon, E.A., & Hooper, S. (2006). Social risk and protective child, parenting, and child care factors in early elementary school years. Parenting: Science and Practice, 6(1), 79-113.
  6. Hooper, S.R., Ashley, T.A., Roberts, J.E., Zeisel, S.A., & Poe, M. (2006). The relationship of otitis media in early childhood to attention dimensions during the elementary school years. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 27(4) 281-289.
  7. Burchinal, M.R., Roberts, J.E., Zeisel, S.A., & Rowley, S.J. (in press). Social risk and protective factors for African American children's academic achievement and adjustment during the transition to middle school. Developmental Psychology.
  8. Rowley, S.J., Burchinal, M., Roberts, J.E., & Zeisel, S.A. (in review). Racial identity and race-related social cognition in African Americans during middle childhood. Child Development.