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为识别早期听力损失儿童提供了前所未有的机会，据估计，今天美国每1000名新生儿中有1至6人患有早期听力损失。患有听力损失的儿童长期面临语言和读写能力不佳的风险，使他们面临相当大的学术和学习困难的风险。研究表明，失聪婴儿从出生时就接触到聋人父母自然产生的手语，在学业上的表现优于那些后来从非母语听力父母那里学习手语的失聪儿童。然而，关于儿童学习美国手语的早期语言发展的科学证据仍然非常需要，并且没有研究探索婴幼儿使用在线测量的早期实时处理手语。本项目通过对Fernald等人（1998;2008）开发的边听边看（LWL）程序的新颖适应，首次对婴幼儿学习美国手语的语言解释效率进行了评估。在过去的十年里，弗纳尔德的研究小组探索了听力正常的幼儿在学习听口语的过程中是如何发展出关键的处理技能的，他们发现了处理效率的显著个体差异，这种差异有力地预测了后来的语言结果。为了将这项研究扩展到学习美国手语的儿童，我们建立在之前对单语和双语儿童学习口语的广泛研究的基础上，以及Corina实验室对聋人成人的美国手语加工的开创性研究。参与者包括两组学习美国手语的18-36岁儿童：(a)聋人父母的聋人儿童（“聋人的聋人”- DODs, n=25）和(b)聋人父母的听力正常儿童（“聋人成人的孩子”- CODAs, n=25）。coda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参与者将在适用于符号刺激的LWL-ASL任务中进行测试；CODA儿童和只学习英语的听力儿童将在使用口语刺激的类似程序上进行测试。这两项任务都评估儿童解释熟悉的符号/单词的速度和准确性，以及他们使用熟悉的符号/单词知识来学习新符号/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个月后重新接受测试。本研究将首次对母语美国手语学习者早期实时手语理解的个体差异的影响进行研究，为探索语言暴露差异在聋儿和听力婴儿手语处理效率中的作用提供机会。这项探索性研究还将导致开发潜在有价值的新措施，用于未来评估不同类型手语接触的儿童，为临床医生和护理人员提供基准，他们需要绘制接受早期干预的聋儿的语言能力图表。

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.