Studies have shown that iconicity can provide a benefit to non-signers during the learning of single signs, but other aspects of signed messages that might also be beneficial have received less attention. In particular, do other features of signed languages help support comprehension of a message during the process of language learning? The…

Children learning language efficiently process single words and activate semantic, phonological, and other features of words during recognition. We investigated lexical recognition in deaf children acquiring American Sign Language (ASL) to determine how perceiving language in the visual-spatial modality affects lexical recognition. Twenty native…

Late exposure to the first language, as in the case of deaf children with hearing parents, hinders the production of linguistic expressions, even in adulthood. Less is known about the development of language soon after language exposure and if late exposure hinders all domains of language in children and adults. We compared late signing adults and…

Linguistic expressions of locative spatial relations in sign languages are mostly visually motivated representations of space involving mapping of entities and spatial relations between them onto the hands and the signing space. These are also morphologically complex forms. It is debated whether modality-specific aspects of spatial expressions…

Does spatial language influence how people think about space? To address this question, we observed children who did not know a conventional language, and tested their performance on nonlinguistic spatial tasks. We studied deaf children living in Istanbul whose hearing losses prevented them from acquiring speech and whose hearing parents had not…

Three mental rotation tasks, the Card Rotation Task (CRT), the Vandenberg Mental Rotation Test (VMRT), and the Money Road-Map of Direction Sense (MRM), were administered to 60 deaf students from Gallaudet University to determine if mental rotation was predictive of scores on the ACT English or Math subtests. Other predictor variables, such as…

In the course of language development children must solve arbitrary form-to-meaning mappings, in which semantic components are encoded onto linguistic labels. Because sign languages describe motion and location of entities through iconic movements and placement of the hands in space, child signers may find spatial semantics-to-language mapping…

A collection of papers addresses a variety of issues regarding the nature and structure of sign language, gesture, and gesture systems. Articles include: "Theoretical Issues Relating Language, Gesture, and Space: An Overview" (Karen Emmorey, Judy S. Reilly); "Real, Surrogate, and Token Space: Grammatical Consequences in ASL American…

In an examination of the acquisition of the spatial syntax of American Sign Language (ASL), 43 children aged 3-10 years were given a range of comprehension and elicitation tests designed to analyze the subsystems involved in the corrrect use of ASL syntax. The subsystems were nominal establishment, verb agreement, and consistency of reference. The…

Spatial relations in American Sign Language (ASL) are often signed from the perspective of the signer and so involve a shift in perspective and mental rotation. This study examined developing knowledge of language used to refer to the spatial relations "front," "behind," "left," "right," "towards," "away," "above," and "below" by children learning…

This report, arising from a 1991 meeting, provides an update to two of the six areas covered in the 1989 long-term plan of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. These include: (1) balance and the vestibular system; and (2) language and language impairments. For each area, the state of the art is reviewed, recent…

A study examined aspects of the acquisition of spatialized morphology and syntax in American Sign Language (ASL) learned natively by deaf children of deaf parents. Children aged 2 to 8 were shown story books to elicit narratives, and the resulting use of verbs contained morphological forms not appearing in adult grammar. Analysis of the creative…