Word Learning in Deaf Children Using Eye-tracking and Behavioral Measures

Status: Recruiting
Location: See location...
Intervention Type: Other
Study Type: Interventional
Study Phase: Not Applicable
SUMMARY

Mutual exclusivity is a word learning constraint in which the learner assumes that a given word refers to only one category of objects. In spoken languages, mutual exclusivity has been demonstrated in monolingual children as young as 17 months and cross-linguistically, while multilingual learners show an attenuated mutual exclusivity bias. Mutual exclusivity has not been robustly demonstrated in deaf children acquiring American Sign Language (ASL). Further, it is unclear if mutual exclusivity applies to those learning both a signed and a spoken language. Like unimodal bilinguals, bimodal bilingual (BiBi) children learn two words for an object, but these words are separated by modality. A BiBi child could therefore assume that all objects have two words (like unimodal bilinguals) or that all objects have one spoken word and one sign (within-modality mutual exclusivity). The goals of the current study are to demonstrate mutual exclusivity in monolingual deaf children acquiring ASL, and to determine if BiBi deaf children utilize mutual exclusivity within each modality.

Eligibility
Participation Requirements
Sex: All
Minimum Age: 1
Maximum Age: 5
Healthy Volunteers: f
View:

• Deaf children ages 18-60 months

• born severely to profoundly deaf

• have either deaf or hearing parents

• communicate using American Sign Language

• have normal to corrected normal vision

Locations
United States
Massachusetts
Boston University
RECRUITING
Boston
Contact Information
Primary
Amy Lieberman, PhD
alieber@bu.edu
617-353-3377
Time Frame
Start Date: 2023-08-07
Estimated Completion Date: 2027-01
Participants
Target number of participants: 40
Treatments
Experimental: Referential cues to object
Each object pair that is presented to the child is accompanied by 1) gaze only (3 trials); 2) novel label only (3 trials); or 3) conflicting gaze and novel label (3 trials)
Related Therapeutic Areas
Sponsors
Leads: Boston University Charles River Campus

This content was sourced from clinicaltrials.gov

Similar Clinical Trials