Adapting Phonological Awareness for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations

1
Adapting Phonological Awareness for Culturally
and Linguistically Diverse Populations
Kerrie Gallagher, Gail Gillon Helen
Hayward
This presentation explores issues in providing
culturally appropriate intervention techniques to
facilitate phonological awareness and vocabulary
acquisition for children with language impairment
who are in language immersion and bilingual
settings. The presentation describes a single
subject design involving young Maori children
(indigenous population of New Zealand) and
examines intervention effectiveness in both Maori
(language of instruction) and English (Gallagher
and Gillon, work in progress). Issues related to
the importance of building relationships between
parents and educational professionals within an
inclusive approach to phonological awareness
intervention will be discussed. Practicalities
related to developing and adapting phonological
awareness activities and assessment tasks to
another language to monitor progress from
phonological awareness intervention across
languages will be addressed.

• Key Phonological Awareness Adaptations
• Relationship building
• Include vocabulary and images that are specific
  to the diverse culture in the class.
• Facilitate early vocabulary development to assist
  with phonological awareness development.
• Use peer and group teaching to encourage and
  consolidate phonological awareness development.

• Examples of Phonological Awareness Adaptations
• Initial phoneme awareness Haka and hangi both
  start with h.
• haka
• Haka hangi
• Alliteration awareness Which word has a
  different first sound? Kiwi, haka or hangi?
• kiwi haka hangi

2
Study Design

• 9 participants 3 children with SLI, 3 children
  with reading difficulty, 3 typically developing
  children
• Single subject design
• Vocabulary targeted in 3 storybooks, each book
  read 3 times over a week
• 10 nouns, 10 verbs targeted
• Vocabulary targeted in 3 ways adult definition,
  acting out/picture, antonym/synonym

Findings and Conclusions
Baseline of understanding of targeted vocabulary
between 1-3 (Figure 1). Results show
statistically significant gains over the
intervention period and stable maintenance of the
target vocabulary post-intervention.
Figure 1 Participant with SLI
.
This study demonstrated that targeting vocabulary
during story retell in te reo Maori in a class
setting shows promising results in facilitating
the acquisition of the target vocabulary. It
indicated that speech-language therapists can
work collaboratively with teachers to carry out
intervention in another language.
Kerrie Gallagher, BSLT, Dip.Tchg. Department of
Communication Disorders College of
Science University of Canterbury New
Zealand klg22_at_student.canterbury.ac.nz