Children's ability to share attention with another social partner (joint attention) plays an important role in language development. However, our understanding of the role of joint attention comes mainly from children learning spoken languages, which gives a very narrow, speech-centric impression of the role of joint attention. This study broadens…

Many literature reviews or other types of reviews (e.g., meta-analyses, scoping reviews) in deaf education research are focused upon primarily or exclusively research that is performed in U.S. contexts or English-speaking contexts only. However, research that is conducted in non-English-speaking, non-U.S. settings that may be more likely to be…

Sign language phonological parameters are somewhat analogous to phonemes in spoken language. Unlike phonemes, however, there is little linguistic literature arguing that these parameters interact at the sublexical level. This situation raises the question of whether such interaction in spoken language phonology is an artifact of the modality or…

Minimal expressions are at the heart of interaction: Interjections like "Huh?" and "Mhm" keep conversations flowing by establishing and reinforcing intersubjectivity among interlocutors. Crosslinguistic research has identified that similar interactional pressures can yield structurally similar words (e.g., to initiate repair…

Human languages, signed and spoken, can be characterized by the structural patterns they use to associate communicative "forms" with "meanings." One such pattern is paradigmatic morphology, where complex words are built from the systematic use "and re-use" of sub-lexical units. Here, we provide evidence of emergent…

Purpose: 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. Method: This cross-sectional study of vocabulary size included 56 DHH children between 8 and 60 months of age who were…

The discussion on the role of American Sign Language (ASL) in deaf students' reading development has been long and contentious. The students' limited knowledge of English has been commonly perceived as a culprit in making reading difficult. However, a more nuanced explanation of reading performance and its relationship with competence in ASL's…

Past work investigating spatial cognition suggests better mental rotation abilities for those who are fluent in a signed language. However, no prior work has assessed whether fluency is needed to achieve this performance benefit or what it may look like on the neurobiological level. We conducted an electroencephalography experiment and assessed…

Second language acquisition (SLA) research offers valuable insight on how languages are learned and how they coexist and influence each other. Sign language learners offer unique perspectives on SLA, allowing researchers to test theories that are otherwise constrained by access to only one modality. Current literature on sign language learning…

This study followed the development of Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) proficiency in 31 deaf bimodal bilingual children (kindergarten through Primary 6) over two years. The Hong Kong Sign Language Elicitation Tool (HKSL-ET) was used at three time points to elicit the production of agreement, classifier, modal, negation, and wh-question structures.…

The influence of sign language comprehension on reading has been well-documented in elementary, secondary, and postsecondary-aged deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/HOH) children and adults. There is limited research into the predictive nature of sign language comprehension on literacy outcomes in D/HOH children in preschool and early elementary school,…

This study presents a corpus-based investigation of self-repairs in hearing adult L2 (M2L2, second modality and second language) learners of Swedish Sign Language ("Svenskt teckenspråk," STS). This study analyses M2L2 learners' STS conversations with a deaf signer and examines the learners' self-repair practices and whether there are…

Writing is an essential element of literacy development, and language plays a central role in the composing process, including developing, organizing, and refining ideas. Language and writing are interconnected, making it paramount for educators to attend to the development of deaf students' language skills. In this quasi-experimental study, we…

The current study contributes empirical data to our understanding of how knowledge of American Sign Language (ASL) syntax aids reading print English for deaf children who are bilingual and bimodal in ASL and English print. The first analysis, a conceptual replication of Hoffmeister (2000), showed that performance on the American Sign Language…

The aim of this study is twofold: To examine if deafness is invariably associated with deficits in executive function (EF) and to investigate the relationship between sign language proficiency and EF in deaf children of deaf parents with early exposure to a sign language. It is also the first study of EF in children acquiring Polish Sign Language.…