Word-learning skills of deaf preschoolers: the development of novel mapping and rapid word-learning strategies

Word-learning skills of 19 deaf/hard-of-hearing preschoolers were assessed by observing their ability to learn new words in two contexts. The first context required the use of a novel mapping strategy (i.e., making the inference that a novel word refers to a novel object) to learn the new words. The second context assessed the ability to learn new words after minimal exposure when reference was explicitly established. The children displayed three levels of word-learning skills. Eleven children learned words in both contexts. Five were able to learn new words rapidly only when reference was explicitly established. Two children did not learn new words rapidly in either context. The latter seven children were followed longitudinally. All children eventually acquired the ability to learn new words in both contexts. The deaf children's word-learning abilities were related to the size of their vocabularies. The present study suggests that word-learning strategies are acquired even when children are severely delayed in their language development and they learn language in an atypical environment.     

Contributions of the emergent literacy environment to literacy outcomes for young children who are deaf

Specific characteristics of early literacy environments support hearing children's emergent literacy. The researchers investigated these characteristics' role in emergent literacy in young deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children, using the Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation (ELLCO; M. W. Smith, Dickinson, Sangeorge, & Anastasopoulos, 2002). Eighteen self-contained classrooms of preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade DHH children (N = 40) were studied. Hierarchical linear analysis was used to examine study participants' classroom environment and growth in emergent literacy skills. Correlations suggested that classroom environment was more closely related to vocabulary and phonological awareness in DHH children than in typically hearing children. Major differences among classrooms were also indicated. However, growth in children's skills did not correlate strongly with attributes captured by the ELLCO. This suggests that classrooms promoting emergent literacy skills acquisition in DHH children may differ from classrooms of typically developing hearing children.     

Development of literacy skills for Japanese deaf and hard-of-hearing children

We compared the reading development of 77 deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) Japanese children, aged 5–7 (40 females), with 139 of their hearing peers (74 females) in 2018. We assessed each group's phonological awareness (PA), grammar, vocabulary, and reading of hiragana (Japanese orthography children learn first). DHH children showed significant delays in grammar and vocabulary but only a slight delay in PA. Younger DHH children scored better than their hearing peers in reading. Although PA predicted reading for hearing children, reading predicted PA for DHH children. PA partially explained grammar skills for both groups. The results suggest educational intervention for reading acquisition should be based on not only general linguistic features but also each language's unique characteristics.     

Conversations between deaf children and their hearing mothers: pragmatic and dialogic characteristics

We examined communication between hearing mothers and their deaf or hearing children longitudinally at child-ages 22 months and 3 years. Specifically, we analyzed both the effects of child deafness and developmental change on pragmatic and dialogic characteristics of communication. From 22 months to 3 years, deaf and hearing children's communicative skills improved similarly along some dimensions: as they grew older, both deaf and hearing children increased the amount they communicated, became increasingly responsive to their mothers' attentional focus, and were responsible for initiating a higher proportion of the dyads' conversations. On the other hand, deaf children were less skilled at maintaining topics, and the pragmatic function of their communication was more likely to be unclear compared to hearing children. Deaf children were also more likely to direct their mothers and less likely to ask questions than hearing children. Communication by hearing mothers was primarily examined to determine the degree to which they controlled the interactions. Overall, mothers of deaf children were only more controlling along one dimension. Mothers of deaf children used more response controls than mothers of hearing children. However, the majority of measures suggested they did not exert more topic or turn-taking controls than did mothers of hearing children. In addition, mothers of deaf and hearing children seemed equally sensitive to their children's communication abilities. Communication by mothers of both deaf and hearing children changed in similar ways as their children developed. Most of the differences in communication by mothers of deaf and hearing children seemed attributable to the deaf children's linguistic delays. The results suggest that intervention efforts should be focused on fostering linguistic development and not general communication skills or changing maternal conversational control.     

Letter name knowledge and the ability to learn to read by processing letter–phoneme relations in words: Evidence from Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children

Previous studies [Scott & Ehri (1990) Journal of Reading Behavior22: 149–166; de Abreu & Cardoso-Martins (1998) Reading and Writing:An Interdisciplinary Journal 10: 85–104] have shown thatprereaders who know the names of the lettersuse a visual–phonological strategy to learn toread words in which the names of one or moreletters can be clearly detected in thepronunciation of the words. The present resultsextend these findings by showing that BrazilianPortuguese-speaking prereaders who know thenames of the letters can process letter–soundrelations to learn to read spellings in whichthe letters correspond to phonemes, not toletter names. Following Ehri & Wilce'sprocedure [(1985) Reading Research Quarterly 20:163–179], Brazilian preschool childrenlearned to read two types of simplifiedspellings: phonetic spellings, that is,spellings in which the letters corresponded tophonemes in the pronunciation of the words(e.g., SPT for sapato), and visualspellings, that is, spellings in which theletters did not correspond to sounds in thepronunciation of the words, but which werevisually more salient (e.g., VST for pijama). The children learned to read thephonetic spellings more easily than the visualspellings, suggesting that they recognized theletter–phoneme relations in learning to readthe phonetic spellings. This interpretation isbolstered by the results of correlationalanalyses between knowledge of letter sounds andperformance on the two word-learning tasks.While knowledge of letter–phonemecorrespondences did not correlate withperformance on the word-learning task with thevisual spellings, it correlated significantlyand positively with the children's ability tolearn to read the phonetic spellings.     

The development of analogical reasoning in deaf children and their parents' communication mode

The purpose of this article is to analyze the results of a study of the development of analogical reasoning in deaf children coming from two different linguistic environments (deaf children of deaf parents--sign language, deaf children of hearing parents--spoken language) and in hearing children, as well as to compare two groups of deaf children to a group of hearing children. In order to estimate the development of children's analogical reasoning, especially the development of their understanding of different logical relations, two age groups were singled out in each population of children: younger (9- and 10-year-olds) and older (12- and 13-year-olds). In this way it is possible to assess the influence of early and consistent sign-language communication on the development of the conceptual system in deaf children and to establish whether early and consistent sign-language communication with deaf children affects their mental development to the same extent as early and consistent spoken-language communication with hearing children. The children were given three series of analogy tasks based on different logical relations: (a) a series of verbal analogy tasks (the relations of opposite, part-whole, and causality); (b) a series of numerical analogy tasks (the relations of class membership, opposite, and part-whole); and (c) a series of figural-geometric analogy tasks (the relations of opposite and part-whole). It was found that early and consistent sign-language communication with deaf children plays an almost equivalent role in the development of verbal, numerical, and spatial reasoning by analogy as early and consistent spoken-language communication with hearing children.     

Fingerspelling and sign language as alternative codes for reading and writing words for Chilean deaf signers

The study examined the role of sign language and fingerspelling in the development of the reading and writing skills of deaf children and youth. Twenty-six deaf participants (13 children, 13 adolescents), whose first language was Chilean Sign Language (CHSL), were examined. Their dactylic abilities were evaluated with tasks involving the reading and writing of dactylic and orthographic codes. The study included three experiments: (a) the identification of Chilean signs and fingerspelled words, (b) the matching of fingerspelled words with commercial logos, and (c) the decoding of fingerspelled words and the mapping of these words onto the writing system. The results provide convergent evidence that the use of fingerspelling and sign language is related to orthographic skills. It is concluded that fingerspelling can facilitate the internal representation of words and serve as a supporting mechanism for reading acquisition.     

Expressive Vocabulary Predicts Nonverbal Executive Function: A 2-year Longitudinal Study of Deaf and Hearing Children

Numerous studies suggest an association between language and executive function (EF), but evidence of a developmental relationship remains inconclusive. Data were collected from 75 deaf/hard-of-hearing (DHH) children and 82 hearing age-matched controls. Children were 6–11 years old at first time of testing and completed a battery of nonverbal EF tasks and a test of expressive vocabulary. These tasks were completed again 2 years later. Both groups improved their scores on all tasks over this period. DHH children performed significantly less well than hearing peers on some EF tasks and the vocabulary test at both time points. Cross-lagged panel models showed that vocabulary at Time 1 predicted change in EF scores for both DHH and hearing children but not the reverse.     

Language facility and theory of mind development in deaf children

Deaf children with signing parents, nonnative signing deaf children, children from a hearing impaired unit (HIU), and oral deaf children were tested on three first-order theory of mind (ToM) tasks--a subset was also given a second-order task (Perner & Wimmer, 1985). A British Sign Language (BSL) receptive language task (Herman, Holmes, & Woll, 1999) and four nonverbal executive function tasks were also administered. The new BSL task allowed, for the first time, the receptive language abilities of deaf children to be measured alongside ToM abilities. Hearing children acted as controls. These children were given the same tasks, except the British Picture Vocabulary Scale was substituted for the BSL task. Language ability correlated positively and significantly with ToM ability, and age was correlated with language ability for both the deaf and hearing children. Age, however, underpinned the relationship between ToM and language for deaf children with signing parents and hearing children but not for nonnative signing, HIU, or oral deaf children. Executive function performance in deaf children was not related to ToM ability. A subset of hearing children, matched on age and language standard scores with signing deaf children, passed significantly more ToM tasks than the deaf children did. The findings are discussed with respect to the hypotheses proposed by Peterson and Siegal (1995, 2000) and Courtin (2000).     

The impact of sign language on the cognitive development of deaf children: the case of theories of mind

The ability to attribute false beliefs (i.e., demonstrate theory of mind) by 155 deaf children between 5 and 8 years of age was compared to that of 39 hearing children ages 4 to 6. The hypotheses under investigation were (1) that linguistic features of sign language could promote the development of theories of mind and (2) that early exposure to language would allow an easier access to these theories. Deaf children were grouped according to their communication mode and the hearing status of their parents. The results obtained in three false belief tasks supported the hypotheses: effective representational abilities were demonstrated by deaf children of deaf parents, whereas those born to hearing parents appeared delayed in that regard, with differences according to their communication mode.     

Gaze following, gaze reading, and word learning in children at risk for autism

This study investigated gaze-following abilities as a prerequisite for word learning, in a population expected to manifest a wide range of social and communicative skills-children with a family history of autism. Fifty-three 3-year-olds with or without a family history of autism took part in a televised word-learning task. Using an eye-tracker to monitor children's gaze behavior, it was shown that the ability to follow gaze was necessary but not sufficient for successful word learning. Those children who had poor social and communicative skills followed gaze to the labeled object but did not then learn the associated word. These findings shed light on the conditions that lead to successful word learning in typical and atypical populations.     

Does sign language provide deaf children with an abstraction advantage? Evidence from a categorization task

The effects of sign language use on cognitive processes of second-generation deaf children were investigated through an intensional categorization task. A forced-choice paradigm was used to examine children's selections of schematic and categorical alternatives as associations to targets that differed in their related sign language characteristics. The results obtained from 48 deaf and hearing 6-year-olds suggest some differences in the categorization abilities and cognitive flexibility between the two groups of children. These differences appear to be explainable in terms of linguistic variables underlying French Sign Language.     

Word learning in children: an examination of fast mapping

Children may be able to gain at least partial information about the meaning of a word from how it is used in a sentence, what words it is contrasted with, as well as other factors. This strategy, known as fast mapping, may allow the child to quickly hypothesize about the meaning of a word. It is not yet known whether this strategy is available to children in semantic domains other than color. In the first study, 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds were introduced to a novel color, shape, or texture word by contrasting the new term with a well-known word from that domain. They were then tested for their ability to produce and comprehend the new term and for whether they knew what semantic domain the word referred to. The results show that even 2-year-old children can quickly narrow down the meaning of a word in each of the semantic domains examined, although children learned more about shape terms than color or texture words. A second study explored the effects of several variables on children's ability to infer the meaning of a new term. One finding of this study was that if the context is compelling, children can figure out the meaning of a new word even without hearing an explicit linguistic contrast.     

Semantic Constraints on Word Learning: Proper Names and Adjectives

4 experiments examined 3- and 4-year-olds' interpretations of novel words applied to familiar objects in the sentence frame, "This Y is X," where X is a novel word, and Y is a familiar basic-level count noun (e.g., "dog", "cup"). These novel words are ambiguous and could be interpreted either as proper names (e.g., "Fred") or as adjectives/mass nouns (e.g., "red"/"lead"). The experiments addressed 2 questions. First, do children appreciate that the words can be construed either as proper names referring to individuals or as adjectives/mass nouns referring to salient properties/material kinds? The results showed that children could easily make either interpretation. Second, what factors affect children's tendency to make either a proper name or an adjective/mass noun interpretation? In the experiments, children learned the novel words for a range of animals and artifacts. Most children who learned the words for typical pets (e.g., a bird) made proper name interpretations, as did the majority of those who learned the words for certain non-pet animals (e.g., a caterpillar) described as possessed by someone, but only about half of those who learned the words for such non-pet animals not so described. Very few children who learned the words for either simple (e.g., a shoe) or complex (e.g., a boat) artifacts made proper name interpretations. The results provide clear evidence of the role of semantic information in constraining children's interpretation of a novel word, and they help to refine an understanding of what counts as a nameable individual for preschoolers.     

Educational responses to varying objectives of parents of deaf children: a Dutch perspective

In 1999, Mary Brennan wrote "By recognising the child as, in effect, a 'little linguist' we are also recognising the power and effectiveness of the child's linguistic capacity" (Brennan, 1999). The recognition of the power and effectiveness of deaf children's linguistic capacity needs to be taken a step further. Focus should be on the conditions in the children's environments necessary to develop their linguistic capacity to its fullest potential and to enhance the use of this capacity in academic and social learning. This leads to the issue of the identification of the right language and instructional mix for deaf children, the topic that is addressed in this article. Essential in this process of identification are the educational objectives parents of deaf children have and the choices they make. This is related to a second issue, that of professional advice. Both issues are characterized by several dilemmas. These dilemmas are illustrated and directions are put forward that will enable educators to negotiate these dilemmas.     

听力正常家庭和聋人家庭中聋童心理理论的发展

聋童能否正确理解他人心理状态直接影响其正常的社会交往。已有研究表明,听力正常家庭中的聋童心理理论水平低于正常儿童,但随其语言发展和年龄增长而逐步提升。聋人家庭中的聋童心理理论处于正常水平,并随年龄增长而成熟。尽管存在心理表征能力发展的迟滞,听力正常家庭中的聋童能在一定程度上理解图片对于现实的错误表征。研究结果提示正常的社交情境可能与聋童的心理理论发展有关。     

Age and language skills of deaf children in relation to theory of mind development

Using four traditional false-belief tasks, I investigated deaf children's age and expressive language skills in relation to their theory of mind development. The children's parents who signed reported on their own knowledge of a mental sign vocabulary. The results indicate age of the child to be strongly related to theory of mind development. Deaf children demonstrated an ability to pass the theory of mind assessment battery between the ages of 7 and 8 years, on average. In comparison, hearing children have consistently demonstrated the ability to perform such tasks between the ages of 4 and 5 years. Therefore, the results indicate deaf children are delayed by approximately 3 years in this cognitive developmental milestone. Expressive language skills of the children and sign language skills of the parents who signed were not found to be significantly related to the children's theory of mind development.     

Do you see what I mean? Shared reference in non-native, early signing deaf children

A group of non-native, early signing deaf children between the ages of 7 and 11 years were tested on a referential communication task. A group of hearing children matched for sex and mental and chronological age were also included in the study. The aim was to study the deaf children's ability to take another persons perspective in a task that resembled a real-life communicative situation to a higher extent than the standard theory of mind (ToM) tasks. A further aim was to investigate the possible importance of a number of background variables such as mental and chronological age, working memory, and false-belief attribution. Results show that the hearing children outperformed the deaf children on the referential communication task and that results were highly correlated with both chronological and mental age, as well as with working memory. There was a positive, but not significant, correlation between false belief and success on the referential communication task. This is an indication that the two tasks tap different abilities and that false belief might be necessary, but not sufficient in order to be skilled in the art of referential communication. The possible role of working memory in the referential communication task is also discussed. The results support the hypothesis of the importance of early talk about mental states for the later development of ToM abilities.     

Representational Abilities and the Hearing Status of Child/Mother Dyads

Two representational abilities, expressive and receptive language and symbolic play, were assessed in multiple formats in hearing and deaf 2-year-old children of hearing and deaf mothers. Based on maternal report, hearing children of hearing and deaf mothers produced more words than deaf children of hearing mothers, hearing children of hearing mothers more words than deaf children of deaf mothers, and deaf children of deaf mothers more words than deaf children of hearing mothers. Based on experimenter assessments, hearing children in both groups produced and comprehended more words than deaf children in both groups. By contrast, no differences emerged among these groups in child solitary symbolic play or in child-initiated or mother-initiated child collaborative symbolic play; all groups also increased equivalently in symbolic play between solitary and collaborative play. Representational language and symbolic play were unrelated in hearing children of hearing mothers and in deaf children of deaf mothers, but the 2 abilities were associated in children in the 2 child/mother mismatched hearing status groups. These findings are placed in the context of a proposed developing modularity of verbal and nonverbal symbol systems, and the implications of hearing status in communicative exchanges between children and their mothers in diverse hearing and deaf dyads are explored.     

The performance of young deaf children in spatial and temporal number tasks

Deaf children tend to fall behind in mathematics at school. This problem may be a direct result of particular experiences in the classroom; for example, deaf children may find it hard to follow teachers' presentations of basic, but nevertheless quite abstract, mathematical ideas. Another possibility is that the problem starts before school: They may either be worse than hearing children at early, nonlinguistic number representations, they may be behind in learning the culturally transmitted number string, or both. This may result in deaf children failing to develop informal problem-solving strategies, which prepare most children for the more formal learning of number and arithmetic that they will have to do at school. We compared 3- and 4-year-old deaf and hearing children's ability to remember and to reproduce the number of items in a set of objects. In one condition, we presented all the items together in a spatial array; in another, we presented them one at a time in a temporal sequence. Deaf children performed as well as the hearing children in the temporal tasks, but outperformed their hearing counterparts in the spatial task. These results suggest that preschool deaf children's number representation is at least as advanced as that of hearing children, and that they are actually better than hearing children at representing the number of objects in spatial arrays. We conclude that deaf children's difficulties with mathematical learning are not a consequence of a delay in number representation. We also conclude that deaf children should benefit from mathematical instruction that emphasizes spatial representation.