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

本论文将探讨自闭症对自闭症谱系聋儿手语的影响。在全国各地的聋哑学校里，有相当数量的自闭症儿童，然而直到现在，他们的语言发展还很少受到研究人员的关注。在马萨诸塞州、俄亥俄州、爱荷华州、德克萨斯州和俄勒冈州的聋哑学校就读的大约40名自闭症儿童的手语将被录下来并进行分析。通过观察与老师和同学在学校的互动，以及一个手势启发测试，这些孩子的手语将与听力自闭症儿童的手语进行比较，这些儿童在接触语言的同时也接触到手语，以及正常发展的聋儿的手语。该项目将测试一种假设，即手语的习得可能会给自闭症儿童带来特殊的挑战。特别是，手语要求学习者以他人的身体角度来模仿和成功地复制手势，这对于儿童学习口语来说是不必要的。这种换位思考的能力在自闭症患者中可能会受损，从而导致手语出现问题，而这些问题与自闭症患者语言中发现的问题有着明显的不同。对聋哑自闭症儿童的手语进行系统的分析，可以揭示特定的困难点，并最终改善自闭症儿童的评估、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.