Black English and standard American English constrasts in consonantal development of four and five-year old children.

Four- and five-hear-old black and white children of black English and standard American English backgrounds, respectively were administered a standard articulation test. A contrastive analysis revealed phonological differences in consonantal development between the two dialectal groups. However, contrasts were reflected more in number of developmental errors than in form of errors. Thus, the extent of differences noted between adult phonologies of black English and standard American English were less evident in emerging phonologies since unique error types were not exclusively characteristic of either group. There findings have implications for articulation testing of black English speaking children who have not acquired their adult phonology.