Abstract
In 2006, at the request of the American Samoan (AS) government, 206 AS students in grades K to 3 were screened for speech, language, and hearing. The results included a high incidence of “non-pass” (65%) for the speech/language/cognitive portion, along with a similarly high hearing non-pass rate, and 76% incidence of children with impacted cerumen. The screening was then administered to Sacramento Samoan (SS) children. A control-group of Sacramento non-Samoan children (SNS) was compared to the two groups. The SNS group performed the highest out of all three groups in all areas screened. Possible contributing cultural, linguistic, educational, socioeconomic, and environmental factors are considered, along with ways in which the needs of Samoan children can be most effectively determined.