ASL for infants

[Allen Gardner]

Please could you help a busy colleague with the title of the journal or
book of your reference to Newport and Meier.

On Sun, 18 Mar 2001, Christian Rathmann wrote:

> > What do others on SLLING-L think of this claim? Is there much
> > evidence for it? Or does it rest on the assumption that sign
> > languages are easier for children to understand and acquire than
> > speech? Is it in fact inspired by earlier research which seemed to
> > suggest a sign advantage in language acquisition (i.e. that the
> > first signs appear earlier than the first words), research which has
> > since been questioned by others in the field?
>
> Newport and Meier (1990)'s research claims a sign advantage in sign
> language acquisition: Deaf children acquire first word utterances earlier
> than hearing children acquiring spoken language. However, they (in both
> groups) acquire two-word utterances at the _same_ age.
>
> This claim has been supported by most recent findings on the continuity
> and discontinuity between babbling and early signs by Cheek, Cormier, Repp
> and Meier (to appear in 'Language'): the sign advantage can be explained by
> the earlier development of the motor control system for the manual articulators
> compared with the development of the motor control system for the vocal
> articulators. This does not mean that the development of language is
> different in the two modalities, only that the _expression_ of the
> language may start slightly earlier in the signed modality.
>
>
> Christian
>