ASL and the Brain

[Mark Mandel]

>>From LINGUIST List #10-977. Please DO NOT reply to me.


Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 15:16:38 -0600 (MDT)
From: NANCY MAE ANTRIM <nantrim at mail.utep.edu>
Subject: ASL and the Brain


I would like to express a belated thank you to all who responded to my
question concerning references to studies done on ASL and the brain.

My thanks to -
Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy
Mark Mandel
Gary Jasdzewshi
Gary Morgan
Molly Lash
Marc Picard
Diane Brentari
Jeff Small
Torgrin Solstad
Joerg Keller

The articles mentioned for research on ASL and the Brain were:

Kimura, D. (1981): Neural mechanisms in manual signing. In: Sign Language
Studies, 33, pp. 291-312.

Bellugi, U. (1991): Language and cognition: what the hands reveal about
the
brain: Presidential special adress. Society of Neuroscience Abstracts, 17,
581.

Bellugi, U., H. Poizner & E.S. Klima (1989): Language, modality and the
brain. Trends in Neuroscience, 12, pp. 380-388.

Sderfeldt, B. (1994): Signing in the Brain: Sign Language Perception
Studied by Neuroimaging Techniques. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis
Upsaliensis.

Armstrong, Stokoe and Wilcox. Gestureand the nature of Language (CUP 1995)

H. Poizner, E.S. Klima and U. Bellugi. What the hands reveal about the
brain. MIT Press 1987.

Neville, H.J. & Bavelier, D. (1998). Neural organization and plasticity
of language. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 8, 254-258.

Other good references (cited in the above article) are:

1) Hickock, G., Bellugi, U., and Klima, E. (1996). The neurobiology of
sign language and its implications for the neural basis of language.
Nature, 381, 699-702.

2) Neville, H.J., Bavelier, D., Corina, D., Rauschecker, J., Karni, A.,
Lalwani, A., Braun, A., Clark, V., Jezzard, P., & Turner, R. (1998).
Cerebral organization for language in deaf and hearing subjects:
Biological constraints and effects of experience. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, 95, 922-929.

I found Neville, H.J. & Bavelier, D. (1998) provided a good update on the
research.

It was also mentioned that Anne Petitto at McGill works in this area and
has a webpage that might be of interest.

Again, thank you for all the responses.

Nancy Mae Antrim

*****************************************************************************
Nancy Mae Antrim, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Languages and Linguistics
University of Texas at El Paso
El Paso, Texas 79968-0531
Tel: (915) 747-7045
Fax: (915) 747-5292
e-mail: nantrim at mail.utep.edu