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Typical ASL Development in Deaf Children with Early ExposurePRESENTER: MOLLY ESTES, M.A., ASLTATUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2013

There are many tools to assess English language competency, but what about American Sign Language competency? Do we have many tools for ASL assessment?

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American Sign Language Evaluation

MacArthur Communication Developmental Inventory: Shine Vocabulary Checklist, ASL Version

The Toolkit: Starting with Assessment: A Developmental Approach to Deaf Children’s Literacy

Kendall Conversational Proficiency Level (KCPL) American Sign Language Proficiency Interview (ASLPI) ASL Development Checklist 0-5 years The Listening Comprehension Test 2 The Test of Problem Solving

“The area of assessment continues to be problematic, even for deaf and hard of hearing students without disabilities. Deaf and hard of hearing students with disabilities are often inaccurately assessed due in part to the linguistic challenges posed by assessments, along with the subsequent different assessment needs required by a secondary disability. Unfortunately, there are no adequate assessments that provide the best data for deaf and hard of hearing students with disabilities. “ Deaf Students with Disabilities Network, Gallaudet: Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center, http://deafwdisabilities.grou.ps/wiki/item/assessment-faq

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ASL developmental milestones are included:

Phonology Syntax Semantic Morphology Pragmatic

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Significance of Language Development at very early agesJoint attentionMotherese Language interaction Theory of Mind

Joint Attention (Pizer et al. (2008))

Gaze

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Joint Attention: state in which parent and child share the same object as focus of attention Involves following the eye gaze or pointing gestures of interlocutor Is related to language growth and is an ideal state for word learning Also critical for social and cognitive development (University of CT

research) Hearing child can continue to look at object while parent provides

label verbally, but deaf child must shift focus between parent and object. If timing is off, deaf child will not see signed label.

Parents of deaf children must be good at managing joint attention with their children.

Pizer et al. (2008)

MothereseChild-directed speech Modified style of speaking that tells

baby

Prosody different from adult-directed speech, more attractive to babies Stress patterns and intonation

contours exaggerated

Higher pitch

Shorter utterances

Many repetitions

Many statements replaced by questions

Child-directed sign Emphasizes suprasegmental

patterns of the language Wide angels of articulation

(proximalization)

Slow and repetitive signing

Produced in child’s line of vision

Universally preferred by infants over adult-directed signing (from as early as 2 days)

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Child-directed sign/Motherese

Deaf parents of deaf child

Relocate signing into child’s visual field

Use tactile strategies (touch or sign on child’s body)

Favor canonical SVO order with simplified morphology

Strong facial expression, rhythmic signing

Good timing and coordination of joint attention

Hearing parents of deaf child

Relocate signing into child’s visual field

Use tactile strategies (touch or sign on child’s body)

Favor canonical SVO order with simplified morphology

To acquire language a learner must have:

Exposure in quality and quantity: threshold level of input, adequate exposure to the target language, Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) + Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) (Cummins, 2000; Mayer, 2010)

To an accessible language: available input While engaged in meaningful activity: not lessons and worksheets

but using language to mediate activities that are relevant for the learner

With capable users of the language: contingently responsive conversational partners

Mayer, Connie (2013)

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BICS & CALPClassroom teachers need to understand the difference between social language and academic

language acquisition. Here is a simple description of BICS and CALP as theorized by Jim Cummins.

Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills

Experts such as Jim Cummins differentiate between social and academic language acquisition. Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) are language skills needed in social situations. It is the day-to-day language needed to interact socially with other people. English language learners (ELLs) employ BIC skills when they are on the playground, in the lunch room, on the school bus, at parties, playing sports and talking on the telephone. Social interactions are usually context embedded. They occur in a meaningful social context. They are not very demanding cognitively. The language required is not specialized. These language skills usually develop within six months to two years after arrival in the U.S.

Problems arise when teachers and administrators think that a child is proficient in a language when they demonstrate good social English.

Website: everythingESL.net

Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency

CALP refers to formal academic learning. This includes listening, speaking, reading, and writing about subject area content material. This level of language learning is essential for students to succeed in school. Students need time and support to become proficient in academic areas. This usually takes from five to seven years. Recent research (Thomas & Collier, 1995) has shown that if a child has no prior schooling or has no support in native language development, it may take seven to ten years for ELLs to catch up to their peers.

Academic language acquisition isn’t just the understanding of content area vocabulary. It includes skills such as comparing, classifying, synthesizing, evaluating, and inferring. Academic language tasks are context reduced. Information is read from a textbook or presented by the teacher. As a student gets older the context of academic tasks becomes more and more reduced.

The language also becomes more cognitively demanding. New ideas, concepts and language are presented to the students at the same time.

Jim Cummins also advances the theory that there is a common underlying proficiency (CUP) between two languages. Skills, ideas and concepts students learn in their first language will be transferred to the second language.

Website: everythingESL.net

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Students who are literate in their native language have many skills to draw on when they learn academic English, even when the writing system is different. It is much easier to teach a concept if the student already has some background with it in native language. Once students grasp the underlying literacy skills of one language, they can use these same skills to learn another language. For example, 10th graders who are literate in Spanish will understand the underlying process of reading in English. Older students will be able to transfer skills such as scanning, selecting important information, predicting what comes next, and visualizing to enhance comprehension.

Theory of Mind Theory of Mind refers to the ability of a person to understand that

others may have beliefs and perspectives that differ from our own (simplified).

Example: John entered the office early this morning while it was still sunny. At noon, when I arrived, it suddenly started to rain hard. I know it’s raining outside, but I also know that John has a different

belief, because he has not been outside since this morning. A person who does not have ToM would think that John knows

that it’s raining, because I know it’s raining.

Pichler, D. (Fall 2011)

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Theory of MindFalse belief tests

There are many tests for Theory of Mind, but the most popular target person’s understanding that someone can have a false belief (like John’s belief that it’s sunny outside)

Normally developing hearing children pass ToM tests at around 4 years. Seems tied to language development, including acquisition of

mental verbs like think and know. Deaf of Deaf children perform similarly to hearing, but Deaf of hearing

(late exposed) are delayed in ToM development. Their language input is not linguistically rich enough to trigger normal ToM development.

Pichler, D. (Fall 2011)

Theory of MindFalse belief tests (Morgan & Kegl 2006)

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To acquire language a learner must have: Exposure in quality and quantity: threshold level of input,

adequate exposure to the target language, Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) + Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) (Cummins, 2000; Mayer, 2010)

To an accessible language: available input While engaged in meaningful activity: not lessons and worksheets

but using language to mediate activities that are relevant for the learner

With capable users of the language: contingently responsive conversational partners

Mayer, Connie (2013)

What do Deaf children need? Research

Effective teaching of first language develops academic proficiency that transfers to learning a second language

Deaf students with more sophisticated ASL skills acquire English better

Meta-linguistic understanding of two languages increases a student’s academic potential

Parallel for Deaf children Development of ASL phoneme awareness activities

which are similar to those of Spoken English

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What are the benefits of Phoneme Awareness?

Expands their understanding of ASL Leads to the development of meta-linguistic skills Expands vocabulary development Develops storytelling components such as facial expressions and

role-shifting Parallels ELA framework standards Helps them gain an experience in ASL that can be applied to

their learning of English

FACTS

Fingerspelling is an important aspect of ASL (Brentari and Padden, 2001)

Native-like signing teachers use fingerspelling more frequently than teachers who use ASL as a second language (Padden and Ramsey, 2000)

12% to 35% of signed discourse uses fingerspelled words

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more FACTS

Of 2164 fingerspelled items, 70% of words were nouns, 10% were adjectives, and 6% were verbs

Fingerspelling is heavily embedded within the ASL system as signers use it frequently in daily conversations. (Hile)

Benefit of fingerspelling: LITERACY “it is not surprising that research shows that fingerspelling

skills are highly related to English literacy and vocabulary knowledge.” (Mayberry, Chamberlain, Waters & Hwang; Padden & Ramsey; Sedey)

and more FACTS

“…showed that deaf children who were taught new vocabulary using lexicalized fingerspelling were more likely to learn the English printed version than when taught only signs and English orthography.” (Hile)

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How to introduce new vocabulary? Sandwiching (Kelly)

(THEORY) (T-H-E-O-R-Y) (THEORY) (H-O-N-O-R) (HONOR) (H-O-N-O-R)

½ Sandwiching (POLICY) (P-O-L-I-C-Y)

Chaining (Padden) (duty) (point) (DUTY) (D-U-T-Y) (DUTY)printed word + pointing at word + initialized sign +

fingerspelling + initialized sign

Strategies for writing new words

Individual letters vs. Chunk letters (pausing) E..L..E..P..H..A..N..T ELE..PH..ANT

Three-letter word, spell full repeat JEW..EL..RY, JEWELRY

Spell in chunk/pausing word

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References:

Morgan, G. & Kegl, J. (2006). Nicaraguan sign language and theory of mind: the issue of critical periods and abilities. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47:8, p.811-819.

Morford & Mayberry (2002). Language acquisition by eye, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Pizer et al. (2008). Joint attention and child-directed signing in American sign language, Austin: University of Texas.

Website: everythingESL.net