Hello, Laura (and others following this thread), here's another
perspective. Focusing on the type of input parents make available to
infants, ASL is, as you say, quite different than referential gestures
("baby signs"). But if you examine what the infants themselves produce, for the first several months
the similarities are more striking than the differences.
In a 2000 book chapter, I compared infant production data from two
studies: Folven and Bonvillian's 1991 study of hearing babies provided
with ASL from birth (plus gestures, presumably, and varying amounts of
spoken English) and Goodwin and Acredolo's 1993 study of hearing babies
for whom parents deliberately enhanced their use of referential gestures to
accompany some of their spoken English words beginning near 11 months
of age. <br>
<br>Focusing just on number of forms (ASL signs or referential
gestures), there was a massive difference in what was provided, but no
detectable difference in age at
first manual form meeting symbolic criteria (~12 mo). The first symbolic
spoken word appeared at the same age in both groups (~12 mo). With symbolic criteria not applied, the first ASL sign was ~8 mo and the tenth
form was attained at 13.5 mo for ASL,
14.1 mo for referential gestures, and 13.3 mo for the latter group's spoken words.
By the end of each study, the number of manual forms was (only)
two to three times as high for the ASL learners (e.g., median of 31 forms at an estimated average age
of 17.4 mo) as for babies with enhanced exposure to referential gestures (e.g., median of 16.5 at an average age a bit above
20 mo.). <br>
<br> An initial interpretation is that the early forms for both groups
are quite similar not only in their onset but also in their
developmental role -- an enhancement of the usually more limited, naturally occurring symbolic gestures. For the ASL
learners these morph a few months later into a sign lexicon and for the other babies declines as they acquire a larger lexicon of spoken words. The main caveat is that the
ASL learners should also be acquiring phonological knowledge throughout and
comprehension of ASL syntax later in this period, setting them apart in these respects
from the others. <br>
<br>Fine-grained longitudinal study of the individual manual forms used
by ASL learners and their parents at 8-24 months would be invaluable. I'd venture that if
it turned out that these parents are like those of Acredolo and
Goodwyn's earliest families (who did not deliberately enhance their
gesturing but naturally arrived at an average of 4 or 5 referential gestures used symbolically by the babies), in
addition to ASL they would be seen to use a few idiosyncratic forms that
get picked up by their babies but later fall away. From the baby's
perspective all the forms could be picked up initially as vehicles for
symbolic gesturing, and the ASL signs would also offer the opportunity
to extract aspects of ASL phonology and syntax. <br>
<br>See Abrahamsen, A. (2000). <a href="http://crl.ucsd.edu/%7Eadele/publications/abrahamsen_enhancedgesture.pdf" target="_blank">Explorations of enhanced gestural input to children in
the bimodal period.</a> In K. Emmorey and H. Lane (Eds.), <i>The signs
of language revisited: An anthology to honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward
Klima</i> (pp. 357-399). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. (And please note: I
excluded early talkers from G&A's sample and then adjusted the raw
data from each study to make them as
comparable as
possible. On certain vocabulary measures there also was comparable data
from two of the babies in my own Toddler Sign Program - similar in
important respects to the baby signing situation but using forms
borrowed from ASL rather than invented forms. The relation between
number of forms and age was similar.) <br><br>Adele Abrahamsen<br>Project Scientist<br>Center for Research in Language<br>University of California, San Diego<br>9500 Gilman Drive, 0526<br>La Jolla, CA 92093-0526<br><br>
Email: <a href="mailto:adele@crl.ucsd.edu">adele@crl.ucsd.edu</a><br><br>Homepage: <a href="http://crl.ucsd.edu/~adele">crl.ucsd.edu/~adele</a><br>Inquiry website: <a href="http://inquiry.ucsd.edu">inquiry.ucsd.edu</a><br>
<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 4:38 AM, <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:info-childes%2Bnoreply@googlegroups.com">info-childes+noreply@googlegroups.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
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<a name="1273dc8754760e81_digest_top">Today's Topic Summary</a></div>
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<li><a href="#1273dc8754760e81_group_thread_0">Use of baby signs in children acquiring sign language</a> [4 Updates]</li>
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<div style="background-color: rgb(232, 238, 247); font-family: helvetica; font-size: 140%; border-top: 1px solid rgb(119, 153, 221); padding: 2px;"> Topic: <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes/t/dbcd9cd1909bbaf8" target="_blank">Use of baby signs in children acquiring sign language</a></div>
<ul>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Laura Morett <<a href="mailto:lmorett@ucsc.edu" target="_blank">lmorett@ucsc.edu</a>></span> Mar 07 12:21PM -0800
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<br>
Dear all,<br>
A recent post to another thread reminded me of something I've recently <br>
been wondering about. Does anyone know if there is an research on the <br>
use of baby signs with children acquiring ASL or another actual sign <br>
language? I understand that the two are very different beasts, in <br>
that baby signs are considered more akin to gestures than actual sign <br>
languages, which have been shown to have all of the characteristics of <br>
spoken languages. I also understand that sign language generally <br>
emerges more quickly than spoken language, due to children's better <br>
motor control over their hands than their larynx, so perhaps there is <br>
no need for them to use baby signs at all. But I was just wondering <br>
if anyone knows of any research on this at all.<br>
<br>
On a related note, do users of sign languages such as ASL gesture? <br>
Would this be impossible, due to their use of both hands for signing?<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
Laura Morett<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
************************************************************************************************<br>
Laura Maribeth Morett<br>
Ph.D. Student<br>
Cognitive Psychology Area<br>
Department of Psychology<br>
University of California, Santa Cruz<br>
<br>
Office: Social Sciences 2, Room 419<br>
Lab: Bilingualism & Cognition, SS2 411<br>
Mailstop: Psychology Faculty Services<br>
Phone: (831) 459-4592<br>
Fax: (831) 459-5319<br>
Personal website: <a href="http://people.ucsc.edu/%7Elmorett" target="_blank">http://people.ucsc.edu/~lmorett</a><br>
Email: <a href="mailto:lmorett@ucsc.edu" target="_blank">lmorett@ucsc.edu</a><br>
<p> </p>
</ul>
<ul>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Roberta Golinkoff <<a href="mailto:Roberta@udel.edu" target="_blank">Roberta@udel.edu</a>></span> Mar 07 03:33PM -0500
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<br>
See the research by Linda Acredolo at University of CA Davis about baby's<br>
use of "baby sign" and its impact on oral language acquisition.<br>
Best, Roberta Golinkoff<br>
<br>
> .<br>
> For more options, visit this group at<br>
> <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en" target="_blank">http://groups.google.com/group/info-childes?hl=en</a>.<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph. D.<br>
H. Rodney Sharp Professor<br>
School of Education and Departments of Psychology and Linguistics and<br>
Cognitive Science<br>
University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716<br>
Office: 302-831-1634; Fax: 302-831-4110<br>
Web page: <a href="http://udel.edu/%7Eroberta/" target="_blank">http://udel.edu/~roberta/</a><br>
Author of "A Mandate for Playful Learning in Preschool: Presenting the<br>
Evidence" (Oxford)<br>
<a href="http://www.mandateforplayfullearning.com/" target="_blank">http://www.mandateforplayfullearning.com/</a><br>
Please check out our doctoral program at<br>
<a href="http://www.udel.edu/education/graduate/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.udel.edu/education/graduate/index.html</a><br>
The late Mary Dunn said, "Life is the time we have to learn."<br>
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<ul>
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><<a href="mailto:reilly1@mail.sdsu.edu" target="_blank">reilly1@mail.sdsu.edu</a>></span> Mar 07 01:01PM -0800
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<br>
Hi Laura,<br>
Karen Emmorey has done work on gesture in ASL if you are interested.<br>
Cheers<br>
Judy<br>
<p> </p>
</ul>
<ul>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Peter Gordon <<a href="mailto:pgordon@tc.columbia.edu" target="_blank">pgordon@tc.columbia.edu</a>></span> Mar 07 04:09PM -0500
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<br>
It seems that there is a separate issue about whether young infants can<br>
learn to communicate with a simplified sign system (which seems to be the<br>
case) and whether that helps (or hinders) normal language learning (which<br>
seems to be more controversial). Probably shouldn't throw out the baby<br>
signs with the bathwater, just because it doesn't help with regular language<br>
if some parents find it useful for understanding an infants needs.<br>
<br>
Peter Gordon<br>
<br>
<br>
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