Bilinguals often outperform monolinguals on nonverbal tasks that require resolving conflict from competing alternatives. The regular need to select a target language is argued enhance executive control. We investigated whether this enhancement stems general effect of bilingualism (the representation two languages) or modality constraint forces selection. Bimodal bilinguals can, but do not always, sign and speak at the same time. Their languages involve distinct motor perceptual systems,...

Developmental studies have identified a strong correlation in the timing of language development and false-belief understanding. However, nature this relationship remains unresolved. Does promote understanding, or does it merely facilitate that could occur independently, albeit on delayed timescale? We examined understanding deaf learners an emerging sign Nicaragua. The use mental-state vocabulary performance low-verbal task were assessed, over 2 years, adult adolescent users Nicaraguan Sign...

Although spatial language and cognition covary over development across languages, determining the causal direction of this relationship presents a challenge. Here we show that mature human depends on acquisition specific aspects language. We tested two cohorts deaf signers who acquired an emerging sign in Nicaragua at same age but during different time periods: first cohort its infancy, 10 y later second more complex form. found second-cohort signers, now their 20s, used consistent than...

Iconic mappings between words and their meanings are far more prevalent than once estimated 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 the vocabulary: neighborhood density (the number lexical items phonologically similar target) frequency. Using mixed-effects logistic regressions, we reanalyzed 58 parental reports native-signing deaf productive 332 signs American Sign...

ObjectiveTo examine whether children who are deaf or hard of hearing have parents can develop age-level vocabulary skills when they early exposure to a sign language.Study designThis cross-sectional study size included 78 between 8 and 68 months age were learning American Sign Language (ASL) had parents. Children exposed ASL before 6 36 compared with reference sample 104 sign.ResultsDeaf in the first life age-expected receptive expressive growth. short delay relatively smaller but not sizes,...

The purpose of this study is to determine whether and how learning American Sign Language (ASL) associated with spoken English skills in a sample ASL-English bilingual deaf hard hearing (DHH) children.

Bimodal bilinguals, fluent in a signed and spoken language, provide unique insight into the nature of syntactic integration language control. We investigated whether bimodal bilinguals who are conversing with English monolinguals produce American Sign Language (ASL) grammatical facial expressions to accompany parallel structures English. In ASL, raised eyebrows mark conditionals, furrowed wh-questions; brow movement is synchronized manual onset clause. produced more ASL-appropriate than did...

Two populations have been found to exhibit delays in theory of mind (ToM): deaf children hearing parents and with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Deaf exposed sign from birth by their parents, however, show no such delay, suggesting that early language exposure is key ToM development. Sign languages also present frequent opportunities visual perspective-taking (VPT), leading the question whether could benefit ASD. We first study ASD parents. Seventeen native-signing a confirmed diagnosis...

Most deaf children have hearing parents who do not know a sign language at birth, and are risk of limited input during early childhood. Studying these as they learn has revealed that timing first-language exposure critically shapes outcomes. But the receive in their first is only delayed, it much more variable than most learners, many from themselves new learners. Much research on learning considered role parent using broad strokes, categorizing non-native, poor signers, native, strong...

Sign languages express viewpoint-dependent spatial relations (e.g., left, right) iconically but must conventionalize from whose viewpoint the relation is being described, signer's or perceiver's. In Experiment 1, ASL signers and sign-naïve gesturers expressed egocentrically, only successfully interpreted descriptions nonegocentrically, suggesting that convergence in visual modality emerges with language conventionalization. 2, we observed cost of adopting a nonegocentric was greater for...

Lexical iconicity-signs or words that resemble their meaning-is overrepresented in children's early vocabularies. Embodied theories of language acquisition predict symbols are more learnable when they grounded a child's firsthand experiences. As such, pantomimic iconic signs, which use the signer's body to represent body, might be readily learned than other types signs. Alternatively, structure mapping theory iconicity predicts learners sensitive amount overlap between form and meaning. In...

Language provides a rich source of information about other people's thoughts and feelings. Consequently, delayed access to language may influence conceptual development in Theory Mind (ToM). We use functional magnetic resonance imaging behavioral tasks study ToM child (n = 33, 4-12 years old) adult 36) fluent signers American Sign (ASL), characterize neural responses during ASL movie-viewing tasks. Participants include deaf children whose first exposure was up 7 12). Neural stories...

Even the simplest narratives combine multiple strands of information, integrating different characters and their actions by expressing perspectives events. We examined emergence referential shift devices, which indicate changes among these perspectives, in Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL). languages, like spoken mark grammatically with a deictic perspective. In addition, sign languages can point or movement body to specified spatial location three-dimensional space front signer, capitalizing...

People frequently gesture when a word is on the tip of their tongue (TOT), yet research mixed as to whether and why aids lexical retrieval. We tested three accounts: retrieval hypothesis, which predicts that semantically related gestures facilitate successful retrieval; cognitive load account, matching only hard, in case TOT; motor movement any movements should support In Experiment 1 (a between-subjects study; N = 90), inhibition, but not neck affected TOT resolution overall participants...

The Berkeley Transcription System (BTS) has been designed for the transcription of sign language videotapes at level meaning components. system is based on efforts to transcribe adult-child interactions in American Sign Language (ASL) and Netherlands (SLN). goal BTS provide a standard means transcribing signed utterances, meeting following objectives: –compatibility with CHAT format CLAN programs (CHILDES) –linear representation continuous typed line, using only ASCII characters...