The Development of Antonym Knowledge in American Sign Language (ASL) and Its Relationship to Reading Comprehension in English

Abstract

It is unknown if the developmental path of antonym knowledge in deaf children increases continuously with age and correlates with reading comprehension, as it does in hearing children. In the current study we tested 564 students aged 4–18 on a receptive multiple‐choice American Sign Language (ASL) antonym test. A subgroup of 138 students aged 7–18 took the Stanford Achievement Test reading comprehension test. The results showed that antonym knowledge depended more strongly on age for deaf children with deaf parents than for deaf children with hearing parents. This indicates more developmentally typical acquisition for deaf children with deaf parents, consistent with early natural language exposure. Multiple regressions demonstrated that ASL antonym knowledge eliminated the advantage of deaf parents for reading. This establishes a language effect of ASL on reading comprehension in English.

The Development of Sensitivity to Grammatical Violations in American Sign Language: Native Versus Nonnative Signers

“…Siegel and Ryan (), for example, found that children with learning disabilities performed significantly more poorly than typically developing children on grammatical error correction tasks. The current results add to the growing literature of identifying language difficulties in children using signed language: BSL (Herman, Rowley, Mason, & Morgan, ; Marshall et al., ; Mason et al., ; Morgan, Herman, & Woll, ; Woll & Morgan, ) and ASL (Novogrodsky, Fish et al., ; Quinto‐Pozos et al., , Quinto‐Pozos, Forber‐Pratt, & Singleton, ). These findings suggest that reliable assessment tools may need to be developed for specific language backgrounds, such that nonnative signers’ scores should be compared to nonnative norms and native signers’ scores should be compared to native norms (Herman, Holmes, & Woll, ; Mann & Marshall, ).…”

“…Novogrodsky, Fish et al. () further demonstrated that deaf signing children make the same kinds of developmental errors as similarly aged hearing children. Younger signing deaf children made more phonological errors on a test of ASL synonyms than did older children.…”

“…The development of a sign language in deaf children exposed to a signed language from birth parallels the spoken language acquisition of typically developing hearing children (e.g., Chen Pichler, ; Corina & Singleton, ; Mayberry & Squires, ; Newport & Meier, ; Petitto, ). Signed vocabulary acquisition in deaf children resembles acquisition of spoken words by hearing children (Anderson & Reilly, ; Novogrodsky, Caldwell‐Harris, Fish, & Hoffmeister, ; Novogrodsky, Fish, & Hoffmeister, ). For example, Novogrodsky, Caldwell‐Harris et al.…”

“…For example, Novogrodsky, Caldwell‐Harris et al. () found that young signers understood opposite‐based relationships at the same age as did typically developing hearing children. Novogrodsky, Fish et al.…”

American Sign Language Syntax and Analogical Reasoning Skills Are Influenced by Early Acquisition and Age of Entry to Signing Schools for the Deaf

“…Critical to this discussion is the fact that knowing a language fluently is a major factor in learning about the world and crucial for success in an academic environment. Additionally, for Deaf children, research supports the notion that fluency in a first language (e.g., ASL) supports learning a second language (Novogrodsky et al, 2014a). In fact, several studies have found that ASL knowledge support the development of English literacy skills (Lange et al, 2013; Andrew et al, 2014; Ausbrooks et al, 2014; Hrastinski and Wilbur, 2016).…”