Poster - #VH-79965 - Keywords: Hawaii Creole narrative development

A preliminary description of narrative language development in Pidgin (Hawaiʻi Creole)-speaking children

Bethany F. Schwartz
California State University – Monterey Bay

ABSTRACT:
Children who speak non-standardized varieties of English are at risk for both over- and under-referral to speech-language and special education services (Pearson et al., 2014). Oral narrative skills are highly correlated to later literacy skills such as reading comprehension (Suggate et al., 2018) Differences in oral narrative skills in standardized American English (SAE)-speaking children may also differentiate children with and without language disorders (Winters et al., 2022) Very little research exists on narrative production by Hawai‘i Creole (locally called “Pidgin”; Sakoda & Siegel, 2003) speaking children (Watson-Gegeo & Boggs, 1977). RQs: What narrative macro- and microstructures do Pidgin-speaking children use when retelling a story? How does that usage change with age?