Simultaneous Acquisition of ASL and Spoken English (in a Hearing Child of a Deaf Mother and Hearing Father): Phase I: Early Lexical Development

Abstract

This study describes the linguistic development in American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken English by a hearing female child whose mother is profoundly deaf and father is hearing. The data were collected from the age of 7 months, 6 days, when the first sign emerged, to the age of 19 months, 8 days, when the child began systematically combining signifiers. The first phase in this longitudinal research focuses on early word meanings. The results confirm previous findings that (1) the child’s first sign emerges several months before the first spoken word, (2) lexical acquisition in ASL and spoken English progresses through similar stages, and (3) the child initially develops one lexical system, with separate entries from both languages.