Indigenous young children’s language development:

Promising Practices and Needs

Jessica Ball, M.P.H. Ph.D.
University of Victoria, Canada

With the proportion of Indigenous Canadians under 5 years of age approximately 70%
greater compared to the proportion of non-Indigenous young children, and a birth rate 1.5 times
that of the birth rate of non-Indigenous peoples (Statistics Canada, 2006), giving Indigenous
children the best start in life is one of the most important investments we can make in Canada.
A particularly effective investment in this area would consist of supports for parents and other
caregivers to engage in responsive language-mediated interactions with infants and young
children at home, and community programs to stimulate language development.

Language develops most rapidly from infancy throughout the preschool years. Likewise,
language delays and difficulties are best prevented and treated during these early years. Decades
of research in neuroscience, developmental psychology, and economics has produced
voluminous evidence showing that early interventions supporting the development of less
advantaged children have much higher returns than later interventions after children have started
formal schooling (Heckman, 2006). This article summarizes what is known about language
development of Indigenous Canadians under six years old and efforts that are being taken, as
well as those that could be taken, to support optimal language development among this growing
young demographic.

Need for a focused program of research

It is worth stressing at the outset that there is an urgent need for research on Indigenous
children’s speech-language development, needs and responses to interventions. At the time of
this writing, there were no population-based data for characterizing the speech-language
strengths or difficulties of First Nations, Inuit or Métis children. Indigenous children were not
systematically sampled in the two national longitudinal cohort studies of the growth and
development of Canadian children and youth (National Longitudinal Study of Children and
Youth and Understanding the Early Years). Further, most Indigenous young children are never
evaluated by developmental specialists (e.g., infant development consultants, child care
practitioners, speech-language pathologists, pediatricians); speech-language services are
extremely limited for children living on-reserve, since they are not eligible for provincially
funded services and this is a service that most First Nations do not contract; and well over half of
Indigenous children do not have access to child care programs where their speech-language
development could be monitored and difficulties noticed. Finally, and perhaps most importantly,
most existing monitoring, screening or diagnostic tools have not been validated for use with
____________________________________________________________________________________________

A version of this article was printed in Canadian Issues, Winter, 2009, pp. 37-43.
The author acknowledges the help of First Nations communities and Indigenous individuals in Canada, the USA,
Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealan, Bangladesh and Thailand for participating in various forums and studies focused
on Indigenous children’s health, early learning, and social inclusion. For correspondence, please contact Jessica
Ball, School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria. [email protected]

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Indigenous children: screening and assessment tools in current use in Canada are generally
rooted in research involving children of European heritage in urban settings with English or
French as their first language.1
Based on existing research on the living conditions, family life challenges, and health of
Indigenous youngsters and their academic outcomes, it is generally recognized that Indigenous
children face more challenges to fulfilling their developmental potential than any other
population in Canada (Ball, 2008; Council of Ministers of Education, 2004). Overall, 52.1% of
Indigenous children are living below the poverty line, and have the highest rate of poverty
compared to other equity groups: visible minority children and children with disabilities.

Low language proficiency may be an important contributor to these high rates of

exclusion: strong language proficiency can increase the probability of success in school,
participation in the work-force, economic security, and social inclusion (Bird & Akerman, 2005).
It is generally believed, though not well documented, that Indigenous children are at elevated
risk of language delays (Canada Council on Learning, 2007; Standing Committee on Human
Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, 2003). At national and
provincial conferences and training workshops involving practitioners in Indigenous Infant
Development and Early Childhood Care and Development, urgent calls are repeatedly heard for
increased supports for home and community-based language stimulation programs and for
diagnostic and speech-language therapy services. Speech-language delays and deficits have been
identified as the most frequently occurring type of developmental challenge for Indigenous
young children seen in Indigenous Head Start programs (e.g., Minister of Public Works and
Government Services Canada, 2002), by the B.C. Indigenous Child Care Society (2004), and by
programs surveyed by a Task Force of the Centre of Excellence for Children and Adolescents
with Special Needs (deLeeuw, Fiske, & Greenwood, 2002).

The pivotal role of language in development

Speech-language skills play a role in nearly all developmental outcomes, as shown in
Figure 1. Early language learning contributes in primary ways to learning in all other domains,
and makes learning at later ages more efficient and therefore easier, self-motivating, and more
likely to continue (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). In particular, it is well known that success in
school requires vast exposure to, practice with, and proficiency in oral language (Hart & Risley,
1995). More generally, weak language skills in the preschool years are a strong predictor of
lower academic achievement, particularly for children in lower socio-economic families
(Schuelle, 2001). Early interventions to increase language proficiency can significantly increase
later success in school (Campbell & Ramey, 1994).

1
This means that until new assessment tools have been developed, or the validity of existing tools have been
established and norms have been gathered, any epidemiological data obtained through ‘universal’ screening and
assessment of Indigenous children would need to be interpreted and acted upon with extreme caution.

2
Figure 1

The foundational role of speech-language proficiency.

Heritage language acquisition

For many children, being able to communicate across generations in their families and
communities, and laying down the foundation for a coherent and positive cultural identity with
links to the land, means being able to speak their heritage language (Battiste, 2000; Norris,
2007). Speaking the ancestral language is also seen by some as important to a child’s spiritual
life (Canadian Heritage, 2005; Kirkness, 2002). Yet, Indigenous children are increasingly less
likely to learn their Indigenous language as a first language, if at all (Statistics Canada, 2006):
approximately 16% of Indigenous children under the age of 14 years speak an Indigenous
language as a first or additional language (Norris, 2007).

A basic value in Canada is that, regardless of where children live in this country, and
regardless of their ethnicity, programs for promoting their optimal development should be
accessible, available, and linguistically and culturally appropriate to them (Canadian Centre for
Justice, 2001). At the same time, colonial policies and values have excluded Indigenous
histories, cultures, and languages from public school curricula (Battiste, 2000; Philipson, 1992).
Programs that help Indigenous children to learn their heritage language, rather than treating
European-heritage language skills as normative, can support their cultural identity formation,
cultural knowledge, and connectedness with their cultural community (Crystal, 1997; Hebert,
2000; Ignace, 1998).

Indigenous English dialects

The existence of Indigenous English dialects in Canada is a factor that needs to be
considered in the context of policy approaches to improving learning outcomes of Indigenous
children. Canadian Indigenous English dialects have been studied by the linguistic community
to a limited extent (see review by Ball, Bernhardt & Deby, 2006). Linguistic features of these
varieties of English may include vestiges of Indigenous languages carried over to English (or
possibly French), resulting in variations on the ‘standard’ variety of the dominant language that
are unique to particular heritage language groups. Further, language socialization in Indigenous
families embodies their cultures and includes varying pragmatics of communication that may
also involve vestiges of their Indigenous language and traditional culture(Bernhardt, Ball, &
Deby, 2007). This phenomenon is not restricted to Canada: in Australia, Indigenous English has

3
been described as the main language of 80% of Indigenous Australians (Speech Pathology
Australia, Fact Sheet 2.4).

There is little understanding of the extent to which some Indigenous children’s use of a
non-standard variety of English or French may be misinterpreted as language delay or language
deficit and thus contribute to alarming high estimates of the prevalence of speech-language
pathology among Indigenous children (i.e., false positive interpretations of language pathology).
Several scholars have noted that Indigenous children whose home language is either a non-
standard variant of English or French, or an Indigenous language, need some kind of bridging or
transition support to prepare them to succeed in school (Philpott, 2004; Walton, 1993; Wright,
Taylor, and Macarthur (2000). Pioneering work has been done in Australia on ‘English as a
Second Dialect’ (Malcolm, Haig, Konigsberg, Rochecouste, Collard, Hill, & Cahill,
1999).Several provinces in Canada now have policies and funding to support school-based ESD
programs; however no reports have come to light on the extent or nature of ESD initiatives
involving Indigenous children. Given the findings noted above, this is an area that warrants
greater research attention.

Auditory problems
Ear infections (otitis media) are a good example of the complex determinants of language
development among Indigenous children. Ear infections are much more prevalent among
Indigenous children (from 2.1% to 78% across communities) compared to non-Indigenous
children (about 1%), especially in the north (WHO/CIBA). In the High Arctic, an average of
67% of Inuit children has suffered some hearing loss by the time they reach school-age (Bowd,
2005). In Indigenous children, prevalent causes of ear infections are thought to include
hereditary and constitutional factors, infant feeding practices, sleeping position, and mold in
poorly ventilated homes. Incidence of hearing loss may be reduced by addressing care-giving
practices (e.g., promoting breastfeeding and nutritious solid foods, positioning babies on their
back to sleep), ventilation in homes, and other environmental risk factors (e.g., exposure to
smoke and organochlorines), and increasing community-based capacity to detect and refer
affected children for treatment (Bowd, 2005). These steps in turn could prevent speech-language
delays and deficits, and also limit secondary effects such as learning challenges, social and
behavioral difficulties.

Supporting early language development

Over the past decade, there have been substantial, primarily federal, initiatives to create
quality Indigenous early learning and child care programs. There are a number of community-
based and community-involving programs aimed at supporting the language and literacy
development of Indigenous children. These include: Indigenous Head Start in Urban and
Northern Communities and First Nations Head Start; Indigenous Home Instruction for Parents of
Preschool Youngsters, Hanen’s You Make the Difference – Indigenous Version, the Parent-
Child Mother Goose Program, and Moe the Mouse created by the B.C. Indigenous Child Care
Society. In addition, individual communities have developed approaches for use in home
visiting, nurseries and preschools, drawing on curriculum common to most early childhood
programs, such as music and movement, story-telling, pre-literacy and pre-numeracy games, as
well as parenting skills programs. Many of these programs are culturally-rich and aim in part to
reinforce positive cultural identity of Indigenous youngsters and their families.

4
 Despite efforts to evaluate some of these initiatives, no body of evidence is yet available
identifying their impacts. Nevertheless, these community-based programs for Indigenous young
children and their families constitute an existing infrastructure in some communities within
which capacity could be developed for early language facilitation and intervention.

Given the importance of early language development for social inclusion, cultural
identity, cognitive development, school readiness and educational achievement, new investments
of federal funds are needed for a national strategy to support Indigenous early language and
literacy. Figure 2 presents factors which can be optimized in a national strategy to support
optimal language development among Indigenous young children.

Figure 2

Key influences on early language development

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Family and community driven approaches
Recognizing the limited transportability of social knowledge and practice, many
Indigenous communities and organizations, along with researchers, educators and practitioners,
are encouraging community-driven, dialogical and open-ended approaches to supporting
children’s development (Ball & Pence, 2006; Bernhard, 1995; Cole, 1989). Community
members are uniquely positioned to identify core features of language socialization, to
understand the contexts of child development and care in the community, and to offer insights to
specialists, educators and investigators about the conditions, needs and goals of a family or
community. The ethics and the prospective utility of collaborative, strengths-based approaches
have been demonstrated by cross-cultural investigators (Ball 2002; Crago, 1992; Johnston &
Wong 2002; van Kleek 1994). A national strategy that includes a stream for supporting
Indigenous early language development should support implementation and evaluation of
culturally grounded approaches developed in consultation with families and communities as
demonstration projects.

An ecologically comprehensive strategy

Figure 3 portrays the inter-dependent ecological systems in which Indigenous young
children and their families are nested. These are contexts where supportive interventions can be
introduced to promote optimal language development. This schema situates the family as the
core – or heart – of language-mediated relationships between caregivers and young children.The
Royal Commission on Indigenous Peoples (1996) also prioritized family development and
community-based programs for children and families as the two most promising entry-points
for promoting healthy communication, support, and early detection of needs for extra supports.

6
Figure 3
Systems of support for Indigenous young children’s language development.

Investments in the areas identified in Figure 3 would yield new knowledge and a potentially
effective system of supports driven by Indigenous community agendas and organizations.
Partnerships across Indigenous organizations, Canadian Centres of Excellence, post-secondary
institutions, and sectors including health, education, and child care could support the
development of new resources, capacity, and program strategies. Support for Indigenous early
language and literacy facilitation can be expected to:
 reduce high rates of referral for speech-language therapy with their attendant expenses,
long wait times, and dependencies on external supports;
 reduce high rates of diversion of Indigenous children at school-entry to special programs
for learning support, with their attendant sequelae of social stigma and exclusions;
 counteract prevalent misconstructions of cultural and language differences as
communication and parenting deficits;
 promote cultural continuity and self-esteem;
 help to retain endangered heritage languages;
 increase social inclusion of Indigenous children within the fabric of Canadian society.

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