Using Current and Historical Data to Identify Trends and Relationships for Characterizing Speech in Bilingual Jamaican Children

Abstract

Record ID: 165

Type: Poster Presentation (in-person)

Advisor: Leslie Kokotek

Abstract: Purpose: Jamaican children speak Jamaican Creole (JC) and English, with English being the language of classroom instruction. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jamaican children used less JC due to the requirement of English use during the classroom. This study characterized JC and English-speaking bilingual preschoolers' speech productions before, during, and after COVID-19 for English productions with the goal of identifying possible trends across these time-periods. Method: Forty-one typically developing JC-English-speaking bilinguals ages 3;6-to-5;3 were recorded producing items from a popular speech test over three repetitions for three different groups: Before COVID-19, n=6; During COVID-19, n=10, and After COVID-19, n=25. Acoustic whole-word durations and percent consonant correct (PCC) were established for each production to examine durational and transcription-based differences. Result: We observed a statistically significant difference in PCC scores (p=.02) between the Before COVID-19 (M=82.4, SD=6.7) and During COVID-19 groups (M=93.9, SD = 7.3), with an 11.5-point difference on average, 95% CI [1.9, 21.2]. A statistically significant difference (p=.004) also existed between the Before COVID-19 (M=82.4, SD=6.7) and After COVID-19 groups, (M=98.4, SD=2.5), with a 16-point difference, 95% CI [7.1, 24.9]. For the durational analyses, a statistically significant difference was observed (p=.024) between the Before COVID-19 (M=.01, SD=.003) and During COVID-19 groups (M=.02, SD=007), with a .01-point difference on average, 95% CI [.001, .02]. Conclusion: Regardless of the approach used, children's productions evidenced differences based on timepoint. More research is needed to better understand the impact of these differences in production intelligibility on Jamaican children's lives.