The Lee Assessment of Articulation and Phonology for African American Children Part 1: An Articulation and Phonology Assessment for African American English Speakers

Purpose: Speech sound assessment tools normed based on racial and ethnic demographic data from the current U.S. Census (U.S. Census Bureau, 2021). can be linguistically biased against ethnoracially minoritized individuals (e.g., African Americans) and place them at risk of being misdiagnosed as having an articulation or phonological disorder when they might only have a speech difference. Phonological assessments that contain culturally and linguistically relevant stimuli and scoring procedures are scarce for African American English (AAE) speakers. The current study discussed the development of a speech sound assessment, the Lee Assessment of Articulation and Phonology for African American Children (LAAPAAC), a tool designed for African American children who are AAE speakers. Method: A criterion-referenced articulation/phonology tool was created for African American children who are AAE speakers and piloted with participants in North Louisiana. Results: It was determined that some visual and verbal prompts/stimuli should be revised within the LAAPAAC test. Conclusion: The LAAPAAC should be revised and tried with larger samples until the psychometric validity and reliability of the test are confirmed. Summary: The current study is Part 1 of a two-part article series that discusses developing and piloting a phonological assessment tool designed specifically for African American English (AAE) speakers. Part 1 outlines the development of the assessment tool, and Part 2 discusses the pilot study results related to the performance of AAE speakers who were typically developing compared to AAE speakers who were receiving speech therapy services for articulation.