VOCABULARY ACQUISITION IN DEAF CHILDREN

词汇习得是促进英语学习的重要因素， 流利的手语交际能力和英语阅读的习得 和聋哑学生的写作。 然而，几乎所有现有的研究 集中描述了他们词汇的局限性 成就，很少有人知道失聪的过程， 儿童自然习得词汇和影响词汇习得的变量 并限制这个过程。 听力正常者的大部分口语和书面英语词汇 儿童是通过接触新单词而迅速和偶然地习得的 在对话和书面文本中。 广泛的研究表明， 记录了这一过程的性质和影响因素， 听力正常的儿童，但在聋哑儿童的情况下， 明白 这项研究调查了聋生映射意义的方式 他们在符号话语输入中遇到的新词（无论是在 美国手语和在他们的签名英语中使用 教育环境）和扩展英语文本的阅读中。 几个实验将检查可能影响聋人学生的变量 从文章段落中获得新的英语词汇的能力：（1） 阅读理解技能和策略;（2）信息量和 文本中词义的语义和句法线索类型 （3）新词的具体性和语法形式类别; （4）使用连续的上下文来界定可能的含义 一个未知的词。 进一步研究书面英语将发展， 测试课堂技巧，直接指导如何使用上下文 为了促进聋人的这种学习过程， 学生 最后，两个实验将研究决定 聋生从美国手语中习得新符号词汇的能力， 伴随着卡通故事录像带的签名英语叙述。 ASL 正在逐步引入聋哑儿童的教育， 以美国手语的形式讲故事，但我们没有评估如何以及 不同年龄和现有语言技能的学生 从这样的输入获取新的签名词汇表。 这项拟议中的研究将使人们更好地了解自然界中的 词汇发展的过程，这是必不可少的更有效的 语言干预。

Vocabulary acquisition is a crucial contributor to the development of fluent signed communication skills and the acquisition of English reading and writing in deaf students. Yet almost all of the existing research has focused on describing the limitations of their vocabulary achievements, and little is known about the process by which deaf children naturally acquire-vocabulary and the variables that influence and constrain that process. Most of the spoken and written English vocabulary of normally-hearing children is acquired rapidly and incidentally from exposure to new words in conversational discourse and written text. Extensive research has documented the nature of this process and factors that influence it in normally-hearing children, but in the case of deaf children it is poorly understood. The proposed research investigates the way deaf students map meanings onto new words that they encounter in signed discourse input (both in American Sign Language and in the Signed English used in their educational settings) and in the reading of extended English text. Several experiments will examine variables that may affect deaf students ability to acquire new English vocabulary from paragraphs of text: (1) reading comprehension skills and strategies; (2) informativeness and types of semantic and syntactic clues to word meaning in the text passages; (3) concreteness and grammatical form class of the new words; and (4) the use of successive contexts to delimit the possible meanings of an unknown word. Further studies on written English will develop and test classroom techniques for direct instruction in how to use context clues to meaning, in order to facilitate this learning process in deaf students. Finally, two experiments will investigate factors that determine the ability of deaf students to acquire new sign vocabulary from ASL or Signed English narratives that accompany videotaped cartoon stories. ASL is progressively being introduced into deaf children's education, mostly in the form of ASL storytelling, but we have no evaluation of how well students at different ages and with different existing language skills acquire new signing vocabulary from such an input. The proposed research will provide a better understanding of the natural process of vocabulary development that is essential for more effective language intervention.