Lexical Recognition in Deaf Children Learning American Sign Language: Activation of Semantic and Phonological Features of Signs.

ABSTRACT: Children learning language efficiently process single words, and activate semantic, phonological, and other features of words during recognition. We investigated lexical recognition in deaf children acquiring American Sign Language (ASL) to determine how perceiving language in the visual-spatial modality affects lexical recognition. Twenty native- or early-exposed signing deaf children (ages 4 to 8 years) participated in a visual world eye-tracking study. Children were presented with a single ASL sign, target picture, and three competitor pictures that varied in their phonological and semantic relationship to the target. Children shifted gaze to the target picture shortly after sign offset. Children showed robust evidence for activation of semantic but not phonological features of signs, h

SUBMITTER: Lieberman AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7837603 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature