Lexical organization in deaf children who use British Sign Language: evidence from a semantic fluency task

Exploring knowledge of semantic categories in Persian deaf students

The present study explores the knowledge of semantic categorisation in 24 students with hearing loss who learned spoken Persian at school and a matched number of hearing students. Since the deaf participants learned no official sign language from family or at school, we designed three types of tasks, namely pictorial, written, and entailment which were all based on spoken Persian. Results indicated a large gap between the deaf and the hearing group in all three tasks. A within-group analysis showed that the deaf group performed best on entailment and pictorial tasks compared to written tasks. It was also interesting that the deaf participants did far worse on questions requiring them to supply a word than when they had to mame a choice. The fact that several students demonstrated a close to normal performance on part of the stimuli which involved choices rather than naming tasks indicates that the gap between deaf and hearing students is not so much due to inability to recognise semantic relations and categories but due to the skill at using their knowledge actively.

Deaf Language Specialists: Delivering Language Therapy in Signed Languages

Deaf professionals, whom we term Deaf Language Specialists (DLS), are frequently employed to work with children and young people who have difficulties learning sign language, but there are few accounts of this work in the literature. Through questionnaires and focus groups, 23 DLSs described their work in this area. Deductive thematic analysis was used to identify how this compared to the work of professionals (typically Speech and Language Therapists/Pathologists, SLPs) working with hearing children with difficulties learning spoken language. Inductive thematic analysis resulted in the identification of two additional themes: while many practices by DLSs are similar to those of SLPs working with hearing children, a lack of training, information, and resources hampers their work; additionally, the cultural context of language and deafness makes this a complex and demanding area of work. These findings add to the limited literature on providing language interventions in the signed modality with clinical implications for meeting the needs of deaf and hard-of-hearing children who do not achieve expectations of learning a first language in their early years. The use of these initial results in two further study phases to co-deliver interventions and co-produce training for DLSs is briefly described.

Talking While Signing: The Influence of Simultaneous Communication on the Spoken Language of Bimodal Bilinguals

PURPOSE

This study aimed to examine how speech while sign (simultaneous communication [SimCom]) affects the spoken language of bimodal bilingual teachers and how individual differences in sign-language vocabulary knowledge, SimCom teaching experience, and the ability to perform speech under dual-task conditions explain the variability in SimCom performance.

METHOD

Forty experienced teachers of deaf and hard of hearing students participated in a story narration task under different conditions. Speech rate, lexical richness, and syntactic complexity were measured and compared across speech-only versus SimCom conditions. Furthermore, participants' score on a sign-language vocabulary test, their self-reported SimCom teaching experience, and their performance in a dual-task condition were taken as predictors of SimCom narration performance.

RESULTS

The findings revealed slower speech rate, lower lexical richness, and lower syntactic complexity in the SimCom condition compared with the speech-only condition. Sign-language vocabulary score and SimCom teaching experience explained speech rate and lexical richness. Participant's ability to speak under a dual-task condition did not modulate performance.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings may suggest that the production of the less dominant (sign) language during SimCom entails inhibition of the dominant (spoken) language relative to the speech-only condition. At the same time, the findings are also compatible with the suggestion that SimCom serves as a unique complex communication unit that cannot be reduced to the combination of two languages.

Language Intervention Isn't Just Spoken: Assessment and Treatment of a Deaf Signing Child With Specific Language Impairment

Purpose This case study describes the language evaluation and treatment of a 5-year-old boy, Lucas, who is Deaf, uses American Sign Language (ASL), and presented with a language disorder despite native access to ASL and no additional diagnosis that would explain the language difficulties. Method Lucas participated in an evaluation where his nonverbal IQ, fine motor, and receptive/expressive language skills were assessed. Language assessment included both formal and informal evaluation procedures. Language intervention was delivered across 7 weeks through focused stimulation. Results Evaluation findings supported diagnosis of a language disorder unexplained by other factors. Visual analysis revealed an improvement in some behaviors targeted during intervention (i.e., number of different verbs and pronouns), but not others. In addition, descriptive analysis indicated qualitative improvement in Lucas' language production. Parent satisfaction survey results showed a high level of satisfaction with therapy progress, in addition to a belief that Lucas improved in language areas targeted. Conclusions This study adds to the growing body of literature that unexplained language disorders in signed languages exist and provides preliminary evidence for positive outcomes from language intervention for a Deaf signing child. The case described can inform professionals who work with Deaf signing children (e.g., speech-language pathologists, teachers of the Deaf, and parents of Deaf children) and serve as a potential starting point in evaluation and treatment of signed language disorders. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16725601.

The neurocognitive basis of skilled reading in prelingually and profoundly deaf adults

Deaf individuals have unique sensory and linguistic experiences that influence how they read and become skilled readers. This review presents our current understanding of the neurocognitive underpinnings of reading skill in deaf adults. Key behavioural and neuroimaging studies are integrated to build a profile of skilled adult deaf readers and to examine how changes in visual attention and reduced access to auditory input and phonology shape how they read both words and sentences. Crucially, the behaviours, processes, and neural circuity of deaf readers are compared to those of hearing readers with similar reading ability to help identify alternative pathways to reading success. Overall, sensitivity to orthographic and semantic information is comparable for skilled deaf and hearing readers, but deaf readers rely less on phonology and show greater engagement of the right hemisphere in visual word processing. During sentence reading, deaf readers process visual word forms more efficiently and may have a greater reliance on and altered connectivity to semantic information compared to their hearing peers. These findings highlight the plasticity of the reading system and point to alternative pathways to reading success.

Semantic fluency difficulties in developmental dyslexia and developmental language disorder (DLD): poor semantic structure of the lexicon or slower retrieval processes?

BACKGROUND

Children with dyslexia and/or developmental language disorder (hereafter children with DDLD) have been reported to retrieve fewer words than their typically developing (TD) peers in semantic fluency tasks. It is not known whether this retrieval difficulty can be attributed to the semantic structure of their lexicon being poor or, alternatively, to words being retrieved more slowly despite semantic structure being intact.

AIMS

To test two theoretical models that could potentially account for retrieval difficulties in semantic fluency tasks, namely, the Poor Lexical-Semantic Structure Model and the Slow-Retrieval Model. Both models predict that children with DDLD will retrieve fewer items compared with TD children. However, while the Poor Lexical-Semantic Structure Model predicts a less sophisticated network of semantic connections between words in the lexicon, as evidenced by smaller clusters of related items in children with DDLD, the Slow-Retrieval Model predicts intact inter-item associations in the lexicon, as evidenced by the two groups' clusters being of a similar size. The groups' semantic fluency performance was therefore compared. How semantic fluency performance related to children's language, literacy, and phonological skills was also investigated.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

A total of 66 children with DDLD aged 7-12 years and 83 TD children aged 6-12 years, all monolingual Greek speakers, were tested on semantic fluency, using the categories 'animals', 'foods' and 'objects from around the house'. The numbers of correct and incorrect responses, clusters and switches, and the average cluster size were computed. Children were also assessed on non-verbal IQ, language, literacy and phonological tasks.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

In both groups, productivity in semantic fluency tasks correlated strongly with the numbers of clusters and switches, but not with average cluster size. The DDLD group produced significantly fewer correct responses and fewer clusters compared with the TD group, but the two groups showed similar switching and average cluster size. Children's language, literacy and phonological skills significantly predicted the number of correct responses produced, beyond the significant effect of age.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

We conclude that poorer semantic fluency performance in children with DDLD results not from a lexicon with poor semantic structure, but rather from slower retrieval processes from a lexicon with intact semantic structure. The underlying causes of slow lexical retrieval still need further investigation.

Cultural influences on the developing semantic lexicon

To determine whether the developing semantic lexicon varies with culture, we examined the animal and food naming of children from three communities distinguished by language, cultural heritage, and population density. The children were five- and seven-year-olds from Australia (n = 197), Taiwan (n = 456), and the US (n = 172). Naming patterns revealed hierarchical and flexible organization of the semantic lexicon. The content of the lexicon, particularly food names, varied with cultural heritage. In all three communities, wild mammals were predominant during animal naming, a likely influence of children's media. The influence of the Chinese zodiac was evident in the clustering of animal names in the Taiwanese sample. There was no apparent influence of population density and little influence of language, except that the Taiwanese children more frequently named foods at the superordinate level, a possible influence of the structure of Mandarin. Children develop their lexicons in response to culture as experienced first-hand or through media.

Comparing Semantic Fluency in American Sign Language and English

This study investigated the impact of language modality and age of acquisition on semantic fluency in American Sign Language (ASL) and English. Experiment 1 compared semantic fluency performance (e.g., name as many animals as possible in 1 min) for deaf native and early ASL signers and hearing monolingual English speakers. The results showed similar fluency scores in both modalities when fingerspelled responses were included for ASL. Experiment 2 compared ASL and English fluency scores in hearing native and late ASL-English bilinguals. Semantic fluency scores were higher in English (the dominant language) than ASL (the non-dominant language), regardless of age of ASL acquisition. Fingerspelling was relatively common in all groups of signers and was used primarily for low-frequency items. We conclude that semantic fluency is sensitive to language dominance and that performance can be compared across the spoken and signed modality, but fingerspelled responses should be included in ASL fluency scores.

Diagnostic and prognostic role of semantic processing in preclinical Alzheimer's disease

Relatively spared during most of the timeline of normal aging, semantic memory shows a subtle yet measurable decline even during the pre-clinical stage of Alzheimer's disease. This decline is thought to reflect early neurofibrillary changes and impairment is detectable using tests of language relying on lexical-semantic abilities. A promising approach is the characterization of semantic parameters such as typicality and age of acquisition of words, and propositional density from verbal output. Seminal research like the Nun Study or the analysis of the linguistic decline of famous writers and politicians later diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease supports the early diagnostic value of semantic processing and semantic memory. Moreover, measures of these skills may play an important role for the prognosis of patients with mild cognitive impairment.

Semantic fluency in deaf children who use spoken and signed language in comparison with hearing peers

BACKGROUND

Deafness has an adverse impact on children's ability to acquire spoken languages. Signed languages offer a more accessible input for deaf children, but because the vast majority are born to hearing parents who do not sign, their early exposure to sign language is limited. Deaf children as a whole are therefore at high risk of language delays.

AIMS

We compared deaf and hearing children's performance on a semantic fluency task. Optimal performance on this task requires a systematic search of the mental lexicon, the retrieval of words within a subcategory and, when that subcategory is exhausted, switching to a new subcategory. We compared retrieval patterns between groups, and also compared the responses of deaf children who used British Sign Language (BSL) with those who used spoken English. We investigated how semantic fluency performance related to children's expressive vocabulary and executive function skills, and also retested semantic fluency in the majority of the children nearly 2 years later, in order to investigate how much progress they had made in that time.

METHODS & PROCEDURES

Participants were deaf children aged 6-11 years (N = 106, comprising 69 users of spoken English, 29 users of BSL and eight users of Sign Supported English-SSE) compared with hearing children (N = 120) of the same age who used spoken English. Semantic fluency was tested for the category 'animals'. We coded for errors, clusters (e.g., 'pets', 'farm animals') and switches. Participants also completed the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test and a battery of six non-verbal executive function tasks. In addition, we collected follow-up semantic fluency data for 70 deaf and 74 hearing children, nearly 2 years after they were first tested.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

Deaf children, whether using spoken or signed language, produced fewer items in the semantic fluency task than hearing children, but they showed similar patterns of responses for items most commonly produced, clustering of items into subcategories and switching between subcategories. Both vocabulary and executive function scores predicted the number of correct items produced. Follow-up data from deaf participants showed continuing delays relative to hearing children 2 years later.

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

We conclude that semantic fluency can be used experimentally to investigate lexical organization in deaf children, and that it potentially has clinical utility across the heterogeneous deaf population. We present normative data to aid clinicians who wish to use this task with deaf children.

Generation of Signs Within Semantic and Phonological Categories: Data from Deaf Adults and Children Who Use American Sign Language

Two key areas of language development include semantic and phonological knowledge. Semantic knowledge relates to word and concept knowledge. Phonological knowledge relates to how language parameters combine to create meaning. We investigated signing deaf adults' and children's semantic and phonological sign generation via one-minute tasks, including animals, foods, and specific handshapes. We investigated the effects of chronological age, age of sign language acquisition/years at school site, gender, presence of a disability, and geographical location (i.e., USA and Puerto Rico) on participants' performance and relations among tasks. In general, the phonological task appeared more difficult than the semantic tasks, students generated more animals than foods, age, and semantic performance correlated for the larger sample of U.S. students, and geographical variation included use of fingerspelling and specific signs. Compared to their peers, deaf students with disabilities generated fewer semantic items. These results provide an initial snapshot of students' semantic and phonological sign generation.

A Case of Specific Language Impairment in a Deaf Signer of American Sign Language

This article describes the case of a deaf native signer of American Sign Language (ASL) with a specific language impairment (SLI). School records documented normal cognitive development but atypical language development. Data include school records; interviews with the child, his mother, and school professionals; ASL and English evaluations; and a comprehensive neuropsychological and psychoeducational evaluation, and they span an approximate period of 7.5 years (11;10-19;6) including scores from school records (11;10-16;5) and a 3.5-year period (15;10-19;6) during which we collected linguistic and neuropsychological data. Results revealed that this student has average intelligence, intact visual perceptual skills, visuospatial skills, and motor skills but demonstrates challenges with some memory and sequential processing tasks. Scores from ASL testing signaled language impairment and marked difficulty with fingerspelling. The student also had significant deficits in English vocabulary, spelling, reading comprehension, reading fluency, and writing. Accepted SLI diagnostic criteria exclude deaf individuals from an SLI diagnosis, but the authors propose modified criteria in this work. The results of this study have practical implications for professionals including school psychologists, speech language pathologists, and ASL specialists. The results also support the theoretical argument that SLI can be evident regardless of the modality in which it is communicated.

Weaknesses in Lexical-Semantic Knowledge Among College Students With Specific Learning Disabilities: Evidence From a Semantic Fluency Task

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to determine whether deficits in executive function and lexical-semantic memory compromise the linguistic performance of young adults with specific learning disabilities (LD) enrolled in postsecondary studies.

Method

One hundred eighty-five students with LD (n = 53) or normal language development (ND, n = 132) named items in the categories animals and food for 1 minute for each category and completed tests of lexical-semantic knowledge and executive control of memory. Groups were compared on total names, mean cluster size, frequency of embedded clusters, frequency of cluster switches, and change in fluency over time. Secondary analyses of variability within the LD group were also conducted.

Results

The LD group was less fluent than the ND group. Within the LD group, lexical-semantic knowledge predicted semantic fluency and cluster size; executive control of memory predicted semantic fluency and cluster switches. The LD group produced smaller clusters and fewer embedded clusters than the ND group. Groups did not differ in switching or change over time.

Conclusions

Deficits in the lexical-semantic system associated with LD may persist into young adulthood, even among those who have managed their disability well enough to attend college. Lexical-semantic deficits are associated with compromised semantic fluency, and the two problems are more likely among students with more severe disabilities.

Executive Functions in Children With Specific Language Impairment: A Meta-Analysis

PURPOSE

Mounting evidence demonstrates deficits in children with specific language impairment (SLI) beyond the linguistic domain. Using meta-analysis, this study examined differences in children with and without SLI on tasks measuring inhibition and cognitive flexibility.

METHOD

Databases were searched for articles comparing children (4-14 years) with and without SLI on behavioral measures of inhibition or cognitive flexibility. Weighted average effect size was calculated using multilevel modeling to measure potential group differences.

RESULTS

The analysis included 46 studies. Of those, 34 included inhibitory control measures and 22 included cognitive flexibility tasks. Children with SLI performed below same-aged peers on both inhibitory control tasks (g = -.56) and cognitive flexibility tasks (g = -.27). Moderator analyses showed no effect of linguistic task demands, participant age, or severity of language impairment on the degree of difference between children with SLI and controls on measures of inhibitory control.

CONCLUSION

Reliable differences between children with and without SLI were found on inhibition and cognitive flexibility tasks. A moderate group effect was found for inhibition tasks, but there was only a small effect for cognitive flexibility tasks. Results of moderator analyses suggest that these deficits are present throughout development despite task demands or severity of linguistic impairment.

Longitudinal Receptive American Sign Language Skills Across a Diverse Deaf Student Body

This article presents results of a longitudinal study of receptive American Sign Language (ASL) skills for a large portion of the student body at a residential school for the deaf across four consecutive years. Scores were analyzed by age, gender, parental hearing status, years attending the residential school, and presence of a disability (i.e., deaf with a disability). Years 1 through 4 included the ASL Receptive Skills Test (ASL-RST); Years 2 through 4 also included the Receptive Test of ASL (RT-ASL). Student performance for both measures positively correlated with age; deaf students with deaf parents scored higher than their same-age peers with hearing parents in some instances but not others; and those with a documented disability tended to score lower than their peers without disabilities. These results provide longitudinal findings across a diverse segment of the deaf/hard of hearing residential school population.

Exploring the use of dynamic language assessment with deaf children, who use American Sign Language: Two case studies

We describe a model for assessment of lexical-semantic organization skills in American Sign Language (ASL) within the framework of dynamic vocabulary assessment and discuss the applicability and validity of the use of mediated learning experiences (MLE) with deaf signing children. Two elementary students (ages 7;6 and 8;4) completed a set of four vocabulary tasks and received two 30-minute mediations in ASL. Each session consisted of several scripted activities focusing on the use of categorization. Both had experienced difficulties in providing categorically related responses in one of the vocabulary tasks used previously. Results showed that the two students exhibited notable differences with regards to their learning pace, information uptake, and effort required by the mediator. Furthermore, we observed signs of a shift in strategic behavior by the lower performing student during the second mediation. Results suggest that the use of dynamic assessment procedures in a vocabulary context was helpful in understanding children's strategies as related to learning potential. These results are discussed in terms of deaf children's cognitive modifiability with implications for planning instruction and how MLE can be used with a population that uses ASL.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The reader will (1) recognize the challenges in appropriate language assessment of deaf signing children; (2) recall the three areas explored to investigate whether a dynamic assessment approach is sensitive to differences in deaf signing children's language learning profiles (3) discuss how dynamic assessment procedures can make deaf signing children's individual language learning differences visible.

Modality-dependent and -independent factors in the organisation of the signed language lexicon: insights from semantic and phonological fluency tasks in BSL

We used fluency tasks to investigate lexical organisation in Deaf adults who use British sign language (BSL). The number of responses produced to semantic categories did not differ from reports in spoken languages. However, there was considerable variability in the number of responses across phonological categories, and some signers had difficulty retrieving items. Responses were richly clustered according to semantic and/or phonological properties. With respect to phonology, there was significantly more clustering around the parameters "handshape" and "location" compared to "movement". We conclude that the BSL lexicon is organised in similar ways to the lexicons of spoken languages, but that lexical retrieval is characterised by strong links between semantics and phonology; movement is less readily retrieved than handshape and location; and phonological fluency is difficult for signers because they have little metaphonological awareness in BSL and because signs do not display the onset salience that characterises spoken words.

Deficits in narrative abilities in child British Sign Language users with specific language impairment

This study details the first ever investigation of narrative skills in a group of 17 deaf signing children who have been diagnosed with disorders in their British Sign Language development compared with a control group of 17 deaf child signers matched for age, gender, education, quantity, and quality of language exposure and non-verbal intelligence. Children were asked to generate a narrative based on events in a language free video. Narratives were analysed for global structure, information content and local level grammatical devices, especially verb morphology. The language-impaired group produced shorter, less structured and grammatically simpler narratives than controls, with verb morphology particularly impaired. Despite major differences in how sign and spoken languages are articulated, narrative is shown to be a reliable marker of language impairment across the modality boundaries.

Word production errors in children with developmental language impairments

This review focuses on the errors that children with developmental language impairments make on three types of word production tasks: lexical retrieval, the elicitation of derivationally complex forms and the repetition of non-sense forms. The studies discussed in this review come principally from children with specific language impairment, and from children who are English-speakers or deaf users of British sign language. It is argued that models of word production need to be able to account for the data presented here, and need to have explanatory power across both modalities (i.e. speech and sign).