infant "sign" -chapter pdf, archived discussions

[Professor Annette Karmiloff-Smith]

Many thanks, Adele
Annette

At 13:36 -0800 12/1/05, Adele Abrahamsen wrote:
>Dear All,
>
>Annette Karmiloff-Smith's Jan 8 inquiry elicited some
>interesting questions about using invented or borrowed signs
>with babies -- what I also call enhanced gesturing or,
>following Goodwyn and Acredolo, symbolic gesturing.  In
>particular, Barbara Pearson brought up the role of these
>symbols as a bridge to speech (I'd add that the opposite can
>also occur), the importance of this to late talkers,
>and a pattern in which a late talker's words were primarily
>nonreferential. Others have raised practical questions
>about the possible unnaturalness of enhanced gesturing and
>whether it might mitigate the "terrible twos" (if only...).
>
>I did not address these questions in my own reply on Jan 9,
>but some of them have been discussed previously on
>info-childes: to my knowledge, in January 1999, March-April
>2000, and May 2002. For the convenience of anyone wanting to read
>these exchanges -- and to remind everyone how useful the
>info-childes archives can be --  they can be accessed directly at
>http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/info-childes.html, or
>by following the mailing list menu at http://linguistlist.org,
>or using the link at http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/html/email.html.
>I have verified that the following search string, typed into
>the search box for Subject (second box down) will retrieve all
>25 messages:  sign and (infant or bab or hearing or talker).
>
>In one of these 25 messages, posted 3/25/00, I addressed some
>of the practical issues. There is also a follow-up Q & A
>message that is not in the archive, and recently my initial
>reply to Barbara Pearson (which I did not post to the list). I
>would be happy to forward any of these on request.
>
>The book chapter that was the focus of my 1/9/05 reply to
>Annette's query is a longer, more academic exploration of
>what enhanced gesturing findings tell us about the
>bimodal period (c. 12-19 months). It can be accessed as
>a PDF file by pasting into your browser:
>http://mechanism.ucsd.edu/~adele/abrahamsen_enhancedgesture.pdf
>
>I hope that these suggestions, along with the references and
>URLs sent in several peoples' postings Jan 8-10, are helpful
>to anyone wanting to inquire further into this topic.
>
>Best wishes, Adele Abrahamsen
>
>
>On Sat, 8 Jan 2005, Professor Annette Karmiloff-Smith wrote:
>
>>  I have been asked to find out what serious sceintific studies have
>>  been done on the effects of teaching hearing infants to use "signs"
>>  (I am not talking about the real language, ASL or BSL, but a list of
>>  lexical signs taught to "advance infant communication skills" before
>>  they are able to vocalise).
>>
>>  I'd appreciate refs, abstracts of refs, of scientific studies, as
>>  well as any personal experiences.
>>  Rather urgent please.
>>  Many thanks, and HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL,
>>  Annette K-S
>>
>--
>Dr. Adele Abrahamsen
>Center for Research in Language
>University of California, San Diego
>9500 Gilman Drive, 0526
>La Jolla, CA 92093-0526
>
>Office telephone: 858-822-1941
>Office location:  7023 HSS
>
>Email:  adele at crl.ucsd.edu
>
>Homepage:  mechanism.ucsd.edu/~adele
>Inquiry website:  inquiry.ucsd.edu