ASHA Voices

ASHA Voices


Language and Identity: Shifting Away from a Deficit Perspective on African American English

February 27, 2020

In our second of two episodes in honor of Black History Month, today we’re addressing African American English, or AAE.


AAE is a language variation. Maybe you've heard it called a dialect. It sounds different from Mainstream American English. It has its own rules and its own grammar, and it comes from a long language tradition. But when AAE is not recognized, it can be misdiagnosed as a language disorder.


Covering everything from misdiagnosis in the classroom to the connection between language and identity, our panel of experts discusses the language variation known as African American English.