Cassandra Rodriguez

She/her

Education: Majoring in Human Development and Family Science

Mentor: Mary Kohn, Ph.D.

McNair Project: “Soy Caribeño”: the Importance of Diversity within Spanish for SLPs

The purpose of this study is to examine the availability of Spanish speech assessments and to
determine if they are appropriate for Caribbean Spanish variety. The Bilingual Articulation
Phonology Assessment (BAPA), analyzes a child’s speech sound production in the initial, medial
and final word position using Spanish words to determine if there is a speech disorder. A review
of relevant literature was conducted on the common Spanish speech assessments, and screeners
available, as well as the statistics of Caribbean Spanish speakers in the United States. I analyzed
the BAPA and created a list of the Caribbean Spanish phonological characteristics with
examples. The BAPA is a norm-referenced standardized test application that assesses Spanish
target words in all positions for all ages. I focused on eight Caribbean Spanish phonological
characteristics to determine if the BAPA was sensitive to regional variations in Spanish
including:- substitution of final [n] to [ŋ], deletion of final [n], deletion of [d] between words,
deletion of final [d], deletion of final [s], substitution of [l] to [r], substitution of [ʃ ] to [t͡ʃ] (“sh”
to “ch” sounds) and deletion of final [r]. Within these phonological characteristics, one third of
the words were affected by the BAPA word list, this result shows how Caribbean Spanish can be
affected. The significance of this study is to demonstrate the limitations within speech
assessments, and how these limitations need to be accounted to determine if the test will provide
accurate results in children.