The Use of Contrastive Analysis in Distinguishing Difference From Disorder

Contrastive analysis aids the identification of true speech-language errors in cases where there is a mismatch between the linguistic communities of the clinician and the client. This tutorial illustrates the procedure via three case studies of preschoolers who speak African American English (AAE). In these case studies, there was good agreement between the results of contrastive analysis and the results of more well-established comparison metrics, suggesting that contrastive analysis can yield valid profiles that aid in distinguishing difference from disorder in children who speak a nonstandard dialect.