Doctoral Dissertation Research: Sign Language in Deaf and Hearing Autistic Children

本论文的研究将从自闭症的角度探讨自闭症对聋儿手语的影响。在全国各地的聋校中，有相当数量的自闭症儿童，但到目前为止，他们的语言发展几乎没有受到研究人员的关注。马萨诸塞州、俄亥俄州、爱荷华州、德克萨斯州和俄勒冈州聋哑学校约40名自闭症儿童的签名将被录像和分析。通过观察与老师和同学在学校的互动，以及手势启发测试，将这些儿童的手势与听力自闭症儿童的手势进行比较，这些儿童除言语外还接触手势，以及典型发育迟缓的聋儿的手势。该项目将检验手语习得可能会给自闭症儿童带来特殊挑战的假设。特别是，手语要求学习者从他人的身体角度出发，以模仿并成功地复制手语，这对儿童学习口语并不是必要的。这种视角选择可能在自闭症中受到损害，导致手语问题，这些问题与自闭症语言中发现的问题截然不同。对聋人自闭症儿童手势的系统分析可以揭示特定的难点，并最终导致改善对自闭症儿童的评估、干预和教学策略。

This dissertation research will investigate how autism affects sign language in deaf children on the autism spectrum. There is a significant population of children with autism at schools for the deaf around the country, yet until now their language development has received little attention from researchers. The signing of approximately 40 autistic children enrolled at deaf schools in Massachusetts, Ohio, Iowa, Texas, and Oregon will be videotaped and analyzed. Through observations of interactions with teachers and classmates at school, as well as a sign elicitation test, the signing of these children will be compared with that of hearing autistic children who are being exposed to sign in addition to speech, as well as the signing of typically-developing deaf children. The project will test the hypothesis that the acquisition of sign language may pose specific challenges to children with autism. In particular, sign languages require learners to take the physical perspective of others in order to imitate and successfully reproduce signs, something that is not necessary for children acquiring spoken languages. This perspective-taking may be impaired in autism, leading to problems in sign language that are characteristically different from the problems found in autistic speech. A systematic analysis of deaf autistic children's signing could reveal particular points of difficulty and ultimately lead to improved assessments, interventions, and teaching strategies for autistic children.