ASL for infants

[David Corina]

I'll too chime in here.  Of course it is ironic and pathetic that
enthusiasm over the "teaching your hearing child to sign" is not extended
to deaf infants.

But I would like to closely examine a statement that Mark Mandel has made.

> The corresponding confusion in sign
> production is easily observed and well attested in anecdotal evidence:
> the inversion of direction in orientation and motion so that the child
> makes their own view of their own hands as identical as possible to
> their view of their parents' hands.

I fear this "flip of sign persepective" in infants signing is actually
very rare. We should be careful not to raise anecdotal observation to the
level of urban myth (on par with the "early *linguistic* advantage of
sign!). While we have the one published report of Petitto describing the
case of the 1st person pronouns (whose semantics certainly tax cognitive
mappings), to say this is "easily observed and well attested" is likely an
overstatement.

I'd be interested to hear otherwise. My impression is this is more common
in adult new students of sign language but not in infants.

respectfully

David P. Corina Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Deptpartment of Psychology
University of Washington
Seattle WA 98195