Dataset Information

The Road to Language Learning Is Not Entirely Iconic: Iconicity, Neighborhood Density, and Frequency Facilitate Acquisition of Sign Language.

ABSTRACT: Iconic mappings between words and their meanings are far more prevalent than once estimated and seem to support children's acquisition of new words, spoken or signed. We asked whether iconicity's prevalence in sign language overshadows two other factors known to support the acquisition of spoken vocabulary: neighborhood density (the number of lexical items phonologically similar to the target) and lexical frequency. Using mixed-effects logistic regressions, we reanalyzed 58 parental reports of native-signing deaf children's productive acquisition of 332 signs in American Sign Language (ASL; Anderson & Reilly, 2002) and found that iconicity, neighborhood density, and lexical frequency independently facilitated vocabulary acquisition. Despite differences in iconicity and phonological structure between signed and spoken language, signing children, like children learning a spoken language, track statistical information about lexical items and their phonological properties and leverage this information to expand their vocabulary.

SUBMITTER: Caselli NK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5507709 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Road to Language Learning Is Not Entirely Iconic: Iconicity, Neighborhood Density, and Frequency Facilitate Acquisition of Sign Language.

Caselli Naomi K NK Pyers Jennie E JE

Psychological science 20170530 7

Iconic mappings between words and their meanings are far more prevalent than once estimated and seem to support children's acquisition of new words, spoken or signed. We asked whether iconicity's prevalence in sign language overshadows two other factors known to support the acquisition of spoken vocabulary: neighborhood density (the number of lexical items phonologically similar to the target) and lexical frequency. Using mixed-effects logistic regressions, we reanalyzed 58 parental reports of n ...[more]

PMID: 28557672

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Project description:Permanent childhood hearing loss affects 1 to 3 per 1000 children and frequently disrupts typical spoken language acquisition. Early identification of hearing loss through universal newborn hearing screening and the use of new hearing technologies including cochlear implants make spoken language an option for most children. However, there is no consensus on what constitutes optimal interventions for children when spoken language is the desired outcome. Intervention and educational approaches ranging from oral language only to oral language combined with various forms of sign language have evolved. Parents are therefore faced with important decisions in the first months of their child's life.This article presents the protocol for a systematic review of the effects of using sign language in combination with oral language intervention on spoken language acquisition. Studies addressing early intervention will be selected in which therapy involving oral language intervention and any form of sign language or sign support is used. Comparison groups will include children in early oral language intervention programs without sign support. The primary outcomes of interest to be examined include all measures of auditory, vocabulary, language, speech production, and speech intelligibility skills. We will include randomized controlled trials, controlled clinical trials, and other quasi-experimental designs that include comparator groups as well as prospective and retrospective cohort studies. Case-control, cross-sectional, case series, and case studies will be excluded. Several electronic databases will be searched (for example, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO) as well as grey literature and key websites. We anticipate that a narrative synthesis of the evidence will be required. We will carry out meta-analysis for outcomes if clinical similarity, quantity and quality permit quantitative pooling of data. We will conduct subgroup analyses if possible according to severity/type of hearing disorder, age of identification, and type of hearing technology.This review will provide evidence on the effectiveness of using sign language in combination with oral language therapies for developing spoken language in children with hearing loss who are identified at a young age. The information from this review can provide guidance to parents and intervention specialists, inform policy decisions and provide directions for future research.CRD42013005426.

Project description:This study focuses on the relationship between the age of acquisition of Polish Sign Language (PJM) by deaf individuals and their receptive language skills at the phonological, morphological and syntactic levels. Sixty Deaf signers of PJM were recruited into three equal groups (n = 20): (1) a group exposed to PJM from birth from their deaf parents; (2) a group of childhood learners of PJM, who reported learning PJM between 4 and 8 years; (3) a group of adolescent learners of PJM, who reported learning PJM between 9 and 13 years. The PJM Perception and Comprehension Test was used to assess three aspects of language processing: phonological, morphological and syntactic. Participants were asked to decide whether a series of signs and sentences were acceptable in PJM. Results show that the age of PJM acquisition has a significant impact on performance on this task. The earlier deaf people acquire PJM, the more likely they were to distinguish signs and sentences considered permissible and impermissible in PJM by native signers. Native signers had significantly greater accuracy on the phonological, morphological, and syntactic items than either the Childhood or the Adolescent signers. Further, the Childhood signers had significantly greater accuracy than the Adolescent signers on all three parts of the test. Comparing performance on specific structures targeted within each part of the test revealed that multi-channel signs and negative suffixes posed the greatest challenge for Adolescent signers relative to the Native signers. The above results provide evidence from a less-commonly studied signed language that the age of onset of first language acquisition affects ultimate outcomes in language acquisition across all levels of grammatical structure. In addition, this research corroborates prior studies demonstrating that the critical period is independent of language modality. Contrary to a common public health assumption that early exposure to language is less vital to signed than to spoken language development, the results of this study demonstrate that early exposure to a signed language promotes sensitivity to phonological, morphological and syntactic patterns in language.

Project description:AbstractAnimals often disperse from one habitat to another to access mates or suitable breeding sites. The costs and benefits of such movements depend, in part, on the dispersing individuals' phenotypes, including their sex and age. Here we investigated dispersal and road-related mortality in larvae of a bioluminescent beetle, the European common glow-worm, Lampyris noctiluca, in relation to habitat, sex and proximity of pupation. We expected these variables to be relevant to larval dispersal because adult females are wingless, whereas adult males fly when searching for glowing females. We found that dispersing glow-worm larvae were almost exclusively females and close to pupation. The larvae were often found on a road, where they were able to move at relatively high speeds, with a tendency to uphill orientation. However, each passing vehicle caused a high mortality risk, and we found large numbers of larvae run over by cars, especially close to covered, forest-like habitat patches. In contrast, adult females in the same area were most often found glowing in more open rocky and grassy habitats. These findings demonstrate an underappreciated ecological strategy, sex-biased dispersal at larval phase, motivated by different habitat needs of larvae and wingless adult females. The results are also consistent with roads being an ecological trap, facilitating dispersal and presumably females' signal visibility but causing severe larval mortality just before the reproductive stage. Hence, in addition to the previously recognised threats of urbanisation, even low traffic volumes have a high potential to negatively affect especially females of this iconic beetle.Significance statementAnimals sometimes need to move from one habitat to another to find mating partners or breeding sites. We found this need to result in strongly female-biased larval dispersal in the European common glow-worm, a beetle known for the glow of wingless females that attract flying males to mate. Female larvae moving between habitats often used a road or trail but perished in high numbers when run over by cars. Hence, roads are likely to be ecological traps for the female glow-worm larvae, attracting them during dispersal, but causing grave mortality. The sex-biased larval dispersal, demonstrated in this study, is a poorly known ecological strategy that was found to be very risky in a human-modified landscape.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00265-020-02962-6.

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The Road to Language Learning Is Not Entirely Iconic: Iconicity, Neighborhood Density, and Frequency Facilitate Acquisition of Sign Language.

Publications

The Road to Language Learning Is Not Entirely Iconic: Iconicity, Neighborhood Density, and Frequency Facilitate Acquisition of Sign Language.

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