Students of Color With Speech and Language Impairment: Giving Voice to the Voiceless

• In Event: 73.060 - Roundtable Session 31
  In Roundtable Session: 73.060-4 - Exploration of Educational Experiences of Black Learners

Abstract

Multicultural Education textbooks frequently center on issues of race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and/or cultural diversity. Rarely, if ever, do readers of these texts have the opportunity to read research conducted on students who suffer from speech and language impairment (SLI). This study, utilizing a critical race theoretical framework, and data procured from the Data Accountability Center (DAC)—and a critical race theoretical framework—we statistically analyze the distributions of students who are speech or language impaired by race. We introduce and discuss what were are calling the concept of a “cycle-of-silence,” and hope that our paper motivates readers of multicultural education to further investigate the silencing of SLI students in multicultural texts that many times are devoid of SLI research.

Authors

• Antonio Latrell Ellis, College of Charleston

• Nicholas Daniel Hartlep, Metropolitan State University

• Zollie Stevenson Jr, Philander Smith College