American Sign Language English Research Articles

Learning a Sign Language Does Not Hinder Acquisition of a Spoken Language.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether and how learning American Sign Language (ASL) is associated with spoken English skills in a sample of ASL-English bilingual deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children. This cross-sectional study of vocabulary size included 56 DHH children between 8 and 60 months of age who were learning both ASL and spoken English and had hearing parents. English and ASL vocabulary were independently assessed via parent report checklists. ASL vocabulary size positively correlated with spoken English vocabulary size. Spoken English vocabulary sizes in the ASL-English bilingual DHH children in the present sample were comparable to those in previous reports of monolingual DHH children who were learning only English. ASL-English bilingual DHH children had total vocabularies (combining ASL and English) that were equivalent to same-age hearing monolingual children. Children with large ASL vocabularies were more likely to have spoken English vocabularies in the average range based on norms for hearing monolingual children. Contrary to predictions often cited in the literature, acquisition of sign language does not harm spoken vocabulary acquisition. This retrospective, correlational study cannot determine whether there is a causal relationship between sign language and spoken language vocabulary acquisition, but if a causal relationship exists, the evidence here suggests that the effect would be positive. Bilingual DHH children have age-expected vocabularies when considering the entirety of their language skills. We found no evidence to support recommendations that families with DHH children avoid learning sign language. Rather, our findings show that children with early ASL exposure can develop age-appropriate vocabulary skills in both ASL and spoken English.

The neural correlates for spatial language: Perspective-dependent and -independent relationships in American Sign Language and spoken English

In American Sign Language (ASL) spatial relationships are conveyed by the location of the hands in space, whereas English employs prepositional phrases. Using event-related fMRI, we examined comprehension of perspective-dependent (PD) (left, right) and perspective-independent (PI) (in, on) sentences in ASL and audiovisual English (sentence-picture matching task). In contrast to non-spatial control sentences, PD sentences engaged the superior parietal lobule (SPL) bilaterally for ASL and English, consistent with a previous study with written English. The ASL-English conjunction analysis revealed bilateral SPL activation for PD sentences, but left-lateralized activation for PI sentences. The direct contrast between PD and PI expressions revealed greater SPL activation for PD expressions only for ASL. Increased SPL activation for ASL PD expressions may reflect the mental transformation required to interpret locations in signing space from the signer’s viewpoint. Overall, the results suggest both overlapping and distinct neural regions support spatial language comprehension in ASL and English.

“My Name is A-on-the-cheek”: Managing Names and Name Signs in American Sign Language-English Team Interpretation

Interpreters face challenges when rendering names between languages. First, names may be unknown to the interpreter or contain culturally specific information. Further, names lack contextual clues that aid the decoding process. Finally, names may be pronounced in a manner that is difficult to understand (e.g., rapidly or with an accent). Spoken language interpreters have the option of repeating names in their original form; however, signed language interpreters work between languages produced in distinct language modalities (sign-speech) that share no phonological features; thus, names cannot simply be reproduced across languages. In this study we created a mock scenario between two interlocutors (a hearing computer specialist and a deaf international student) who enacted a training session in which they deliberately incorporated names. The interlocutors repeated this training session three times, each with a different team of interpreters. We report strategies used by the teams to convey names in their interpretations.

Do Developmental Communication Disorders Exist in the Signed Modality? Perspectives From Professionals

This study focused on whether developmental communication disorders exist in American Sign Language (ASL) and how they might be characterized. ASL studies is an emerging field; educators and clinicians have minimal access to descriptions of communication disorders of the signed modality. Additionally, there are limited resources for assessing ASL acquisition. This article is designed to raise clinicians' awareness about developmental communication disorders in ASL and categorize types of atypicality that have been witnessed. We conducted 4 focus groups and one 1-on-1 interview with a total of 22 adults (7 Deaf, 15 hearing) who work at bilingual-bicultural (ASL-English) schools for the Deaf. Experiences of these educators and language professionals were analyzed qualitatively using a combination of grounded theory (Charmaz, 2001; Strauss & Corbin, 1998) and a modified van Kaam approach (Moustakas, 1994). Participants confirmed observations of children with suspected communication disorders and considered the prevalence, possible etiologies, and psychosocial aspects of such disorders in ASL. They reported frustration at the lack of diagnostic tools for reliable identification and intervention strategies to be used in educational settings. This work provides us with practitioner accounts proving that developmental communication disorders do exist in ASL. Future reports will describe primary data from signers with atypical language attributes.