Background: Multilingual children living in English-dominant environments may be at risk of misdiagnosis of language disorder. This risk is attributed to the paucity of research on typical multilingual development and over-reliance on standardised measures normed using monolingual English-speakers to inform disorder versus development. In response to this problem, this study aims to inform multilingual children’s response patterns to create adapted scoring protocols for the Expressive Vocabulary Test (EVT) within the Jamaican context and by consequence reduce the risk of misdiagnosis of language disorder among speech-language pathologists (SLPs).

Method: Following ethical approval (REB#00043534), Jamaican Creole (JC)-English-speaking 4-to-5-year-olds (n=27) completed the EVT in English for the Jamaican Creole Language Project. Children’s responses were analysed for patterns and organised into three culturally-responsive categories (‘acceptable’, ‘partially acceptable’, and ‘not acceptable’) as was informed by JC-English-speaking adults. A final “adapted scoring” procedure was then created. Children’s EVT raw scores were calculated using traditional scoring and adapted scoring procedures. Statistical analysis was completed to assess for differences in raw scores and ceiling scores.

Results: Response patterns related to culturally-influenced semantic variations were observed in JC-English children’s responses to the EVT. A Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test revealed a statistically significant difference between the raw scores (p=<0.001) and ceiling scores (p=<0.001) for traditional and adapted scoring protocols in favour of adapted scoring.

Conclusions: Using adapted scoring informed by children’s response patterns and adult input more accurately characterised vocabulary performance for JC-English 4-to-5-year-olds.

Implications for children and families: Providing an adult model, or acceptability judgement, when evaluating vocabulary performance will help to calibrate SLPs’ interpretation of your child’s word knowledge.

Implications for practitioners: Involving family members or members of the same linguistic community as your client can inform the interpretation of your expressive vocabulary performance within multilingual contexts.

Funding: National Institutes on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders 1R21DC018170-01A1 (PI-Washington).

Key words: communication, families’ voices, multilingual

This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities