Real Time Processing of ASL in Deaf and Hearing Native-Signing Infants

描述(由申请人提供)：普遍的新生儿听力筛查提供了前所未有的机会来识别患有早期听力损失的儿童，据估计，目前美国每1000名新生儿中就有1至6名患有早期听力损失。听力受损的儿童长期面临语言和识字表现不佳的风险，使他们面临学习和学习困难的相当大风险。研究表明，聋儿从出生起就接触到聋人父母自然产生的手语，他们在学业上的表现优于后来从非听力父母那里学习手语的聋人。然而，仍然非常需要关于儿童学习ASL的早期语言发展的科学证据，还没有研究探索婴幼儿使用在线测量对手语的早期实时处理。该项目通过对Fernald等人(1998；2008)开发的边听边看(LWL)程序的新改编，开发了对学习ASL的婴幼儿语言口译效率的第一次评估。在过去的十年里，费尔纳德研究小组探索了年幼的听力儿童在学习听口语中的含义时如何发展关键的处理技能，发现处理效率的显著个体差异强烈地预测了以后的语言结果。为了将这项研究扩展到学习ASL的儿童，我们建立在这些广泛的先前关于学习口语的单语和双语儿童的研究基础上，以及Corina实验室关于聋人ASL处理的开创性研究。参与者包括两组学习ASL的18-36岁儿童：(A)聋人父母的聋人子女(“聋哑人”--Dods，n=25)和(B)聋人父母的聋人子女(“聋人成人子女”--Codas，n=25)。Codas还将有不同程度的英语口语接触。我们还包括第三个对照组(C)只学习英语的听力儿童(n=25)。为了评估实时语言处理效率，DOD和CODA参与者将在适应手语刺激的LWL-ASL任务中进行测试；CODA儿童和听力儿童将在使用英语口语刺激的类似程序上进行测试。这两项任务都评估了儿童解释熟悉手势/单词的速度和准确性，以及他们利用熟悉的手势/单词知识学习新手势/单词的技能。手语/单词词汇将通过家长报告和面对面的工具进行线下评估。其中一部分儿童将在6个月后重新测试。这项研究将首次研究ASL母语学习者早期实时手势理解的个体差异的后果，为探索语言暴露的差异在聋儿和听力手势暴露婴儿的手势加工效率中的作用提供了机会。这项探索性研究还将开发潜在有价值的新测量方法，用于未来对不同手语暴露类型的儿童的评估，为需要对接受早期干预的聋哑儿童绘制语言能力图表的临床医生和照顾者提供基准。 与公共卫生相关：尽管出生时听力受损的婴儿长期面临语言和识字能力低下的风险，但人们对聋儿如何熟练地解释美国手语(ASL)等手语知之甚少。在这个开创性的翻译项目中，我们采用了口语理解研究中的创新方法来研究儿童在学习ASL时接受流利性的早期发展。通过探索口语和手语语言处理的实时效率的个体差异，这项研究将为临床医生评估接受早期干预的聋儿的语言能力提供有价值的新工具。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Universal newborn hearing screening provides unprecedented opportunities to identify children with early hearing loss, estimated to affect 1 to 6 per 1,000 newborns in the U.S. today. Children with hearing loss are at chronic risk of underperforming in language and literacy, placing them at considerable risk for academic and learning difficulties. Research has shown that deaf infants exposed to naturally occurring signed languages from birth from deaf signing parents academically outperform deaf individuals who learn sign later in life from non-native hearing parents. Yet, there remains a great need for scientific evidence on early language development in children learning ASL, and no studies have explored the early real-time processing of signed languages by infants and young children using online measures. This project develops the first assessment of efficiency in language interpretation by infants and toddlers learning ASL, through a novel adaptation of the looking-while-listening (LWL) procedure developed by Fernald et al., (1998; 2008). Over the last decade, the Fernald group has explored how young hearing children develop crucial processing skills as they learn to listen for meaning in spoken language, discovering significant individual differences in processing efficiency that strongly predict later language outcomes. In extending this research to children learning ASL, we build on these extensive previous studies with monolingual and bilingual children learning spoken languages, as well as on pioneering studies from the Corina lab on ASL processing by deaf adults. Participants include two groups of 18-36 mo-old children learning ASL: (a) deaf children of deaf parents ("deaf-of-deaf" - DODs, n=25) and (b) hearing children of deaf parents ("children of deaf adults" - CODAs, n=25). CODAs will also have various amounts of exposure to spoken English. We also include a third comparison group of (c) hearing children learning only English (n=25). To assess real-time language processing efficiency, DOD and CODA participants will be tested in the LWL-ASL task adapted for use with sign stimuli; CODA children and hearing children learning only English will be tested on a comparable procedure using spoken English-language stimuli. Both tasks assess children's speed and accuracy in interpreting familiar signs/words, and also their skill at using knowledge of familiar signs/words to learn novel signs/words. Sign/word vocabulary will be assessed offline with parent report and face-to-face instruments. A sub-set of the children will be re-tested 6 months later. The proposed research will be the first study of the consequences of individual differences in early real-time sign comprehension in native learners of ASL, providing the opportunity to explore the role of variation in language exposure in sign processing efficiency in both deaf and hearing sign-exposed infants. This exploratory study will also lead to the development of potentially valuable new measures for use in future assessments of children who vary in types of sign language exposure, providing benchmarks for clinicians and caregivers who need to chart linguistic competencies in deaf children receiving early interventions. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Although infants born with hearing loss are at chronic risk of underperforming in language and literacy, little is known about how deaf children develop proficiency in interpreting signed languages such as American Sign Language (ASL). In this pioneering, translational project, we adapt innovative measures used in research on spoken-language understanding to study the early development of receptive fluency in children learning ASL. By exploring individual differences in real-time efficiency in language processing in both spoken and signed languages, this research will yield valuable new tools for clinicians assessing linguistic competencies in deaf children receiving early interventions.