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PubMedDate not supplied

Perceptual evidence against internal structure in American Sign Language syllables.

Syllables in spoken languages have been argued to have an internal structure which may cluster the consonants and vowels into subgroups. The most commonly used subgroups are the Onset (initial consonants) and Rhyme (vowel and remaining consonants), with the further possibility of dividing the Rhyme into Nucleus (the vowel and any on- or off-glides) and the Coda (the final consonants). Although linguistic debate continues about the exact formulation of such syllable models, the evidence is clear that listeners identify rhythmic beats at a particular point inside the syllable, namely at the release of the initial consonants into the following linguistically stressed vowels (referred to as the syllable peak, assumed to be part of the Nucleus). To determine whether such loci would be identified for syllables in American Sign Language, deaf native signers, hearing native signers, and hearing subjects unfamiliar with sign language were asked to tap to videotaped signed stimuli. Analysis of the tap locations in signed syllables revealed a relatively flat distribution across the syllable for all three groups and for individual subjects. The absence of syllable peak perception is discussed in relation to the motoric characteristics of sign production.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Lexical recognition in sign language: effects of phonetic structure and morphology.

Two experiments are reported which investigate lexical recognition in American Sign Language (ASL). Exp. 1 examined identification of monomorphemic signs and investigated how the manipulation of phonological parameters affected sign identification. Over-all sign identification was much faster than what has been found for spoken language. The phonetic structure of sign (the simultaneous availability of Handshape and Location information) and the phonotactics of the ASL lexicon are argued to account for this difference. Exp. 2 compared the time course of recognition for monomorphemic and morphologically complex signs. ASL morphology is largely nonconcatenative which raises particularly interesting questions for word recognition. We found that morphologically complex signs had longer identification times than matched monomorphemic signs. Also, although roots and affixes are often articulated simultaneously in ASL, they were not identified simultaneously. Base forms of morphologically complex signs were identified initially followed by recognition of the morphological inflection. Finally, subjects with deaf parents (Native signers) were able to isolate signs faster than subjects with hearing parents (Late signers). This result suggests that early language experience can influence the initial stages of lexical access and sign identification.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

Acquisition of sign language by autistic children. I: Expressive labelling.

There has been growing interest in teaching sign language to autistic children who have failed to develop speech. However, controlled experimentation in this area is nonexistent. In the present study, four nonverbal autistic children were taught expressive sign labels for common objects, using a training procedure that consisted of prompting, fading, and stimulus rotation. The efficacy of the procedure was demonstrated in a multiple-baseline design across objects. The results were reliable, replicable across children, and generalizable across therapists. A stimulus control analysis demonstrated that, for three of the children, correct signing was controlled solely by the visual cues associated with the presentation of a given object and was independent of respect to the known perceptual and linguistic deficits of autistic children.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

Sign language acquisition in a mute autistic boy.

A mute autistic boy learned to communicate extensively through American Sign Language. Over a six-month period he produced many spontaneous signs and sign combinations, and analyses of child's sign combinations indicated the presence of a full range of semantic relations. Further evidence of conceptual progress was provided by the child's increased score on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. In addition, parents' and teacher's reports indicated that the child's social behavior improved. The extent of the boy's linguistic progress and associated improvement in social behavior markedly exceeds that usually reported for mute autistic children.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1987

Limits of visual communication: the effect of signal-to-noise ratio on the intelligibility of American Sign Language.

To determine the limits of human observers' ability to identify visually presented American Sign Language (ASL), the contrast s and the amount of additive noise n in dynamic ASL images were varied independently. Contrast was tested over a 4:1 range; the rms signal-to-noise ratios (s/n) investigated were s/n = 1/4, 1/2, 1, and infinity (which is used to designate the original, uncontaminated images). Fourteen deaf subjects were tested with an intelligibility test composed of 85 isolated ASL signs, each 2-3 sec in length. For these ASL signs (64 x 96 pixels, 30 frames/sec), subjects' performance asymptotes between s/n = 0.5 and 1.0; further increases in s/n do not improve intelligibility. Intelligibility was found to depend only on s/n and not on contrast. A formulation in terms of logistic functions was proposed to derive intelligibility of ASL signs from s/n, sign familiarity, and sign difficulty. Familiarity (ignorance) is represented by additive signal-correlated noise; it represents the likelihood of a subject's knowing a particular ASL sign, and it adds to s/n. Difficulty is represented by a multiplicative difficulty coefficient; it represents the perceptual vulnerability of an ASL sign to noise and it adds to log(s/n).

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Teaching autistic children to use sign language: some research issues.

Three questions are raised with respect to the use of sign language as an alternative system of communication for nonverbal autistic children. First, does teaching a child to sign facilitate speech development? The data suggest that following simultaneous communication training, mute children are not likely to learn to talk; however, a combination of simultaneous communication training and separate vocal training may have a synergetic effect on speech development. In contrast, children who initially have good verbal imitation skills apparently show gains in speech following simultaneous communication training alone. Second, what is the upper limit of sign acquisition? Data suggest that abstract concepts, syntax, and generative skills can be taught. Procedures used in the operant conditioning of speech may prove useful in training complex signing skills. Third, does sign acquisition result in a general improvement in adaptive functioning? It appears that following sign training, some children do show increases in spontaneous communication, decreases in self-stimulatory behavior, and improvement in social skills. However, these outcomes are often difficult to interpret. Some data are described that help clarify the relationship between sign training and general behavioral improvement.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1991

Repetition priming with aspect and agreement morphology in American Sign Language.

Two experiments are reported which investigate the organization and recognition of morphologically complex forms in American Sign Language (ASL) using a repetition priming technique. Three major questions were addressed: (1) Is morphological priming a modality-independent process? (2) Do the different properties of agreement and aspect morphology in ASL affect priming strength? (3) Does early language experience influence the pattern of morphological priming? Prime-target pairs (separated by 26-32 items) were presented to deaf subjects for lexical decision. Primes were inflected for either agreement (dual, reciprocal, multiple) or aspect (habitual, continual); targets were always the base form of the verb. Results of Experiment 1 indicated that subjects exposed to ASL in late childhood were not as sensitive to morphological complexity as native signers, but this result was not replicated in Experiment 2. Both experiments showed stronger facilitation with aspect morphology compared to agreement morphology. Repetition priming was not observed for nonsigns. The scope and structure of the morphological rules for ASL aspect and agreement are argued to explain the different patterns of morphological priming.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Biomechanical factors affecting upper extremity cumulative trauma disorders in sign language interpreters.

Symptoms associated with upper extremity cumulative trauma disorders (UECTDs) recently have been reported in professional sign language interpreters. The present investigation is a case control study of potential biomechanical factors that may exacerbate or maintain UECTD-related symptoms in this occupational group. Based on the results of a medical screening, interpreters were classified into two groups: working with pain (n = 16) and working without pain (n = 13). There were no significant differences between the groups on age, gender, years signing, years interpreting, and wrist and forearm endurance and flexibility as measured during an isokinetic strength test of the upper extremities. Subjects were exposed to a standard interpreting task. Groups were compared on measures of repetitiveness of hand/wrist motion, work/rest cycle, postural stress, and smoothness of movement. Heart rate, pain, fatigue, and perceived reduction in extremity flexibility also were measured. The group working with pain demonstrated a distinct pattern of potential biomechanical risk factors previously associated with UECTDs in other occupations. By comparison with the control group, those working with pain exhibited fewer rest breaks, more frequent hand/wrist deviations from neutral, more frequent lateral excursions from an optimal work envelope, and more rapid finger/hand movements while interpreting. Significant group differences on self-report measures of pain, fatigue, and perceived limitation in range of motion also were observed. An analysis of heart-rate response to the interpreting task revealed that both groups demonstrated a modest increase in heart rate to the interpreting task, although interpreters working with pain displayed lower heart rates across all phases of the experimental task.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adult↗
PubMed1991

The role of iconicity in sign language learning by hearing adults.

The feature of transparency has been identified as facilitating the learning of manual signs as word surrogates. The recognition and retention of transparent and nontransparent signs by 50 sign-naive hearing college freshmen was investigated in three tasks: (1) a transparency task; (2) after a training period, a short-term memory task; and (3) a long-term memory task. Results indicated that both transparent and nontransparent signs were retained over a short and a long period of time; however, there was a significant decrease in the number of nontransparent signs retained as the period of time after training increased. Implications for sign language training are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Intelligent temporal subsampling of American Sign Language using event boundaries.

How well can a sequence of frames be represented by a subset of the frames? Video sequences of American Sign Language (ASL) were investigated in two modes: dynamic (ordinary video) and static (frames printed side by side on the display). An activity index was used to choose critical frames at event boundaries, times when the difference between successive frames is at a local minimum. Sign intelligibility was measured for 32 experienced ASL signers who viewed individual signs. For full gray-scale dynamic signs activity-index subsampling yielded sequences that were significantly more intelligible than when every mth frame was chosen. This result was even more pronounced for static images. For binary images, the relative advantage of activity subsampling was smaller. We conclude that event boundaries can be defined computationally and that subsampling from event boundaries is better than choosing at regular intervals.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

Generalization of a sign language rehearsal strategy in mentally retarded and hearing deficient children.

Memory deficits are common in mentally retarded individuals who lack verbal skills. Training in manual signing may be of value. In this study we trained a sign language rehearsal strategy so that the strategy would be used with no instructions to perform it; and assessed whether the strategy would transfer across tasks, and how to train for transfer. Subjects were five essentially nonverbal severely mentally retarded children and three essentially nonverbal deaf children. Each was trained to use a sign-rehearsal strategy in one of two memory tasks. Use of the strategy showed marked increases when children were instructed to rehearse, but showed less change when no instructions were given. Generalization to uninstructed trials was then achieved by gradually delaying the instructions. After this training, two of three children trained in a more complex task transferred uninstructed sign-rehearsal to a less complex task, but children trained in the simpler task did not generalize to the complex task.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Rationale and strategies for American Sign Language intervention.

A Midwest school district established a demonstration Total Communication Project. Its goal was for teachers to become consistent in their role modeling of English and American Sign Language (ASL). English was the primary language of the classroom and ASL was used as an intervention tool. There has been little research on the effectiveness of ASL in the classroom. By implementing an ASL intervention program this project is a first step in establishing an environment conducive to investigating the effectiveness of ASL intervention for teaching deaf students. This paper describes: (a) techniques used for identifying classroom situations that call for the use of ASL; (b) discourse situations that influence the use of different language codes in total communication classrooms; and (c) guidelines for code-switching between English and ASL.

Communication Methods, Total↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Using sign language with tracheotomized infants and children.

Children's ability to communicate with others is important for cognitive development. However, the number of infants and young children deprived of vocalization (aphonia) is increasing in the pediatric patient population due to tracheotomy. The Communication Program for Infants and Parents (CPIP) uses sign language as an alternative system to verbal communication.

Aphonia↗
PubMed1976

Acquisition of American sign language by a noncommunicating autistic child.

Experiments in the perception and language abilities of autistic children indicate that the children have auditory-visual association problems. These findings, combined with the findings that autistic communication is primarily gestural, led to the teaching of elements of American Sign Language to a 5-year-old nonverbal autistic boy. Results after 20 hours of training indicate that the child did acquire signs, that increasing signing led to increasing vocal speech, and that the child has rudimentary English syntax. The use of Ameslan signs spontaneously generalized to other situations and the training resulted in increased social interaction.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1992

Interpreter's wrist. Repetitive stress injury and carpal tunnel syndrome in sign language interpreters.

Forty interpreters attending a regional Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf conference completed a questionnaire regarding symptoms related to repetitive stress injury (RSI), a generic classification of problems that occur after extensive, repetitive motion. RSIs, including the most prevalent form, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS), were surveyed. The vast majority (87.5%) of the interpreters in the sample reported that they had at sometime experienced at least two symptoms associated with RSI. Some (12.5%) who had CTS reported that they had been misdiagnosed. When asked how many other interpreters they knew with RSI problems, they reported, on average, that they knew more than four others. The data indicate that RSI is a severe problem among sign language interpreters and warrants immediate action. The term interpreter's wrist may best describe the malady.

Adult↗