An Exploration of Educator Linguistic Knowledge and Expertise

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to objectively characterize speech-language pathologists’ (SLPs’) language science knowledge. We investigated language science knowledge in the domains of (a) explicit phonemic awareness, which includes phoneme segmentation and phoneme manipulation, (b) orthographic knowledge, and (c) derivational morphology knowledge. For explicit phonemic awareness and orthographic knowledge, participants were 29 SLPs with experience serving kindergarten children in public schools and 29 kindergarten teachers. The participants for derivational morphology knowledge were a subset of the larger sample that included five SLPs and six kindergarten teachers. Participants completed online objective assessments of explicit phonemic awareness, orthographic knowledge, and derivational morphology knowledge. There were statistically significant differences between groups on measures of phoneme segmentation, orthographic knowledge, and derivational morphology knowledge. There was not a statistically significant difference between groups on the phoneme manipulation measure. SLPs outperformed kindergarten teachers on phoneme segmentation and derivational morphology knowledge. Kindergarten teachers outperformed SLPs on orthographic knowledge. The results indicate an uneven distribution of language science knowledge across educational team members who are responsible for children’s reading acquisition. This uneven distribution may impede interprofessional collaboration.