ASL & Slips of the Hand

Question 1

what is ASL?

Answer 1

american sign language

Question 2

characteristics of ASL?

Answer 2

• has its own grammar
• autonomous
• no difference in development b/w asl learners and regular language learners (they “think in sign”)

Question 3

where is ASL processed?

Answer 3

in the left hemisphere

Question 4

parameters of ASL?

Answer 4

hand configuration - place - movement

Question 5

what are slips of the hand?

Answer 5

• additional processes involved in converting thoughts -> language
• suggests similar principles underlie sign and spoken language
• similar to slips of the tongue

Question 6

chronology of language production?

Answer 6

• cooing
• babbling
• one word stage

Question 7

what happens in the one word stage?

Answer 7

child speaks in one word phrases
◦ Person names and object words first
◦ Overextend: child uses a word for too many different cases
◦ Underextend: child doesn’t use a word for enough particular cases
◦ Fast mapping
◦ Holophrase: single-word utterances characteristic of children in the early stages of language acquisition (ex: dada)

Question 8

what is the two word stage?

Answer 8

child speaks in two word phrases
◦ Telegraphic speech
◦ Consist mainly of content words

Question 9

what happens around 2-3 years?

Answer 9

◦ Indication of cause and effect (“eat all gone”)
◦ Use terms for salient perceptual features
◦ Terms for possessive and functions
◦ Terms for location and orientation
◦ By 3 years, complete simple sentences

Question 10

what happens around 3-4 years?

Answer 10

◦ Appropriate use of causal terms (“because”)
◦ Mastery of temporal terms
◦ More location and orientation terms

Question 11

what are the two forms of babbling?

Answer 11

1. reduplicated: where a baby repeats the same syllable sound over and over
2. variegated: where the syllable sounds strung together are different

Question 12

what is fast mapping?

Answer 12

child can infer the meaning of a new word by creating the context for that word using their own instincts of the process of elimination

Question 13

what happens around 5 years? 6 years?

Answer 13

5 : children have acquired much of the syntax of their native language
6: children have knowledge of around 14,000 words

Question 14

what is MLU?

Answer 14

mean length of utterance - is the average number of morphemes produced per utterance

Question 15

what is MLU used for?

Answer 15

◦ is a common way of assessing the rapid change in grammatical ability of children
◦ As MLU increases, syntactic complexity also increases

Question 16

language development of deaf children who have hearing parents?

Answer 16

Homesign: children build their own gestural communication system
 They use signs consistently (for same child)
 They combine gestures
 There is a tendency for gestures to have an order
 The children’s gestures differ from those of their hearing parents

Question 17

Language development in deaf children of deaf parents?

Answer 17

◦ Seems to go through stages like children learning to speak
 Manual babbling
 ~ 8 months start to produce signs
 ~18 months start to put two signs together
◦ Is consistent with the notion that early language development is largely under biological control