Educability-and-Group-Differences-1973-by-Arthur-Robert-Jensen

280 Educability and Group Differences
The authors conclude: . no support was obtained for the
hypothesis that intra-status communication is more effective than
mter-status communication’ (Krauss & Rotter, 1968, p. 173).
While these results seem paradoxical in terms of the linguistic
difference theories, they could be predicted completely on the
basis of mental age obtained on a non-verbal intelligence test,
such as Raven’s matrices. The rank order of the means of all
possible race x age combinations of speakers and listeners could
be predicted by the simple formula M As + 2MAv where M A is
mental age, S is speaker, and L is listener. This is consistent with
the hypothesis that it is intelligence rather than language usage
per se which is the more important factor in communication. The
results of several other studies of Negro-white differences based on
speaker-listener interactions are consistent with this hypothesis
and contradict the verbal deficit hypothesis (Harms, 1961; Peisach,
1965; Eisenberg, Berlin, Dill & Sheldon, 1968; Weener, 1969).
Does the disparity between a white middle-class examiner’s
standard English and the Negro child’s ghetto dialect work to the
disadvantage of the Negro child in a verbally administered individual
IQ test such as the Stanford-Binet Quay (1971) attempted
to answer this question by having a linguist w'hose speciality is
the Negro dialect translate the Stanford-Binet into the Negro
dialect. This form of the test was administered by two Negro male
examiners to fifty 4-year-old Negro children in a Head Start
program in Philadelphia. Another fifty children, selected at random
from the same Head Start classes, wTere given the test in standard
English. The result: no significant difference (Negro dialect form
was 0-78 IQ points higher than standard form). The author notes
*. . . it is interesting that verbal items were passed with greater
frequency than performance items. . . .’ ‘The analysis of item
difficulty raises questions about the existence of either a language
“deficit” or a language “difference” for Negro children having the
experiences of the present 5s. At least their comprehension of
the standard English of the Binet was not impaired.’
Linguists and child psychologists who study the development of
language are now finding, contrary to the popular belief, that
Negro children, especially lower-class Negro children, are actually
somewhat precocious in the most fundamental aspects of language
development as compared with middle- and upper-middle-class
white children. Baratz (1970), a sociolinguist and student of