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Lexical organization in deaf children who use British Sign Language: Evidence from a semantic fluency task*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2012

CHLOE R. MARSHALL ,
KATHERINE ROWLEY ,
KATHRYN MASON ,
ROSALIND HERMAN  and
GARY MORGAN
CHLOE R. MARSHALL*
Affiliation:
Institute of Education
KATHERINE ROWLEY
Affiliation:
Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre, University College London
KATHRYN MASON
Affiliation:
Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre, University College London
ROSALIND HERMAN
Affiliation:
City University, London
GARY MORGAN
Affiliation:
City University, London and Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre, University College London
*
Address for correspondence: Chloe Marshall, Institute of Education – Psychology and Human Development, 25 Woburn Square, London WC1H 0AA. e-mail: c.marshall@ioe.ac.uk.
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Abstract

We adapted the semantic fluency task into British Sign Language (BSL). In Study 1, we present data from twenty-two deaf signers aged four to fifteen. We show that the same ‘cognitive signatures’ that characterize this task in spoken languages are also present in deaf children, for example, the semantic clustering of responses. In Study 2, we present data from thirteen deaf children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) in BSL, in comparison to a subset of children from Study 1 matched for age and BSL exposure. The two groups' results were comparable in most respects. However, the group with SLI made occasional word-finding errors and gave fewer responses in the first 15 seconds. We conclude that deaf children with SLI do not differ from their controls in terms of the semantic organization of the BSL lexicon, but that they access signs less efficiently.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 40 , Special Issue 1: Atypical development , January 2013 , pp. 193 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

[*]

We thank the children who participated in this study, and their teachers and parents. This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council of Great Britain (Grant RES-620-28-6001; Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL)), and by a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship awarded to the first author. We thank Joanna Atkinson and Nicola Botting for discussions about data coding.

References

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