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This article furthers the conversation about how speech-language pathologists (SLPs) can incorporate an understanding of language variation as they provide services to multicultural populations—particularly African Americans, a population that disproportionately receives speech-language pathology services yet is underrepresented within the speech-language pathology community. We call for moving beyond discussions of linguistic difference versus deficit that tend to largely focus on strategies to avoid penalizing dialect speakers and moving toward investigations of other cultural, social, and linguistic considerations that hold immediate and practical importance. In addition, we share insights and recommendations from 2 SLPs with training in sociolinguistics who draw upon an understanding of language variation, particularly African American English (AAE), in their work.

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