Estimating Early Language Input in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children With the Language Access Profile Tool.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to describe the Language Access Profile Tool (LAPT) and its psychometric properties with the aim of evaluating its suitability as an alternative to the deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) Language Exposure Assessment Tool (D-LEAT) in clinical practice with DHH children age 12 years and younger. METHOD: We administered both the LAPT and D-LEAT to the caregivers of 105 DHH children 12 years old and younger from across the United States, 40% of whom were interviewed again after a delay of at least 1 month. Each interview resulted in a child-specific estimate of their cumulative experience with language input, expressed as a proportion divided across eight categories. RESULTS: Participants in the sample reported experience with all eight input categories, but four categories were common and four were rare. Estimates for all input categories were consistent at both initial and follow-up interviews. Estimates for each input category were also strongly correlated with the corresponding estimates from the D-LEAT, although correlations for the rare categories should be interpreted cautiously. CONCLUSIONS: The LAPT demonstrates sufficient test-retest reliability and convergent validity to be a useful and more user-friendly alternative to the D-LEAT. We provide recommendations for how the LAPT and the D-LEAT can be best used in their current form. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.20669001.

Measuring Receptive ASL Skills in Novice Signers and Nonsigners.

We tested the utility of two standardized measures of receptive skills in American Sign Language (ASL) in hearing adults who are novice signers: the ASL Comprehension Test (ASL-CT; Hauser, P. C., Paludneviciene, R., Riddle, W., Kurz, K. B., Emmorey, K., & Contreras, J. (2016). American Sign Language Comprehension Test: A tool for sign language researchers. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 21(1), 64-69. https://doi.org/10.1093/deafed/env051) and the ASL Receptive Skills Test (ASL-RST; Allen, T. E., & Enns, C. (2013). A psychometric study of the ASL Receptive Skills Test when administered to deaf 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children. Sign Language Studies, 14(1), 58-79. https://doi.org/10.1353/sls.2015.0006; Enns, C. J., & Herman, R. C. (2011). Adapting the Assessing British Sign Language Development: Receptive Skills Test into American Sign Language. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 16(3), 362-374. https://doi.org/10.1093/deafed/enr004). We also administered these tests to hearing nonsigners, with the goal of identifying items where the correct answer can be readily deduced through iconicity and/or test-taking skills, even by people with no prior ASL knowledge. We predicted that removing such items would strengthen the correlation between test score and ASL experience (as measured by semesters of instruction). We found that this relationship was stronger for the ASL-CT than the ASL-RST in this population, but still weaker than previously reported, and not substantially improved by any item selection strategy that we employed.

Improved three-dimensional localization of multiple small objects in close proximity in digital holography.

Using intensity gradient- or sparsity-based focus metrics, the ability to accurately localize the three-dimensional (3D) position of a small object in a digital holographic reconstruction of a large field of view is hindered in the presence of multiple nearby objects. A more accurate alternative method for 3D localization, based on evaluation of the complex reconstructed volume, is proposed. Simulations and experimental data demonstrate a reduction in depth positional error for single objects and a notably improved axial resolution of multiple objects in close proximity.

Measuring "Language Access Profiles" in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children With the DHH Language Exposure Assessment Tool.

Purpose The purposes of this study were (a) to introduce "language access profiles" as a viable alternative construct to "communication mode" for describing experience with language input during early childhood for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children; (b) to describe the development of a new tool for measuring DHH children's language access profiles during infancy and toddlerhood; and (c) to evaluate the novelty, reliability, and validity of this tool. Method We adapted an existing retrospective parent report measure of early language experience (the Language Exposure Assessment Tool) to make it suitable for use with DHH populations. We administered the adapted instrument (DHH Language Exposure Assessment Tool [D-LEAT]) to the caregivers of 105 DHH children aged 12 years and younger. To measure convergent validity, we also administered another novel instrument: the Language Access Profile Tool. To measure test-retest reliability, half of the participants were interviewed again after 1 month. We identified groups of children with similar language access profiles by using hierarchical cluster analysis. Results The D-LEAT revealed DHH children's diverse experiences with access to language during infancy and toddlerhood. Cluster analysis groupings were markedly different from those derived from more traditional grouping rules (e.g., communication modes). Test-retest reliability was good, especially for the same-interviewer condition. Content, convergent, and face validity were strong. Conclusions To optimize DHH children's developmental potential, stakeholders who work at the individual and population levels would benefit from replacing communication mode with language access profiles. The D-LEAT is the first tool that aims to measure this novel construct. Despite limitations that future work aims to address, the present results demonstrate that the D-LEAT represents progress over the status quo.

The Input Matters: Assessing Cumulative Language Access in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Individuals and Populations.

Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children present several challenges to traditional methods of language assessment, and yet language assessment for this population is absolutely essential for optimizing their developmental potential. Whereas assessment often focuses on language outcomes, this Conceptual Analysis argues that assessing cumulative language input is critically important both in clinical work with DHH individuals and in research/public health contexts concerned with DHH populations. At the individual level, paying attention to the input (and the person's access to it) is vital for discriminating disorder from delay, and for setting goals and strategies for reaching them. At the population level, understanding relationships between cumulative language input and resulting language outcomes is essential to the broader public health efforts aimed at identifying strategies to improve outcomes in DHH populations and to theoretical efforts to understand the role that language plays in child development. Unfortunately, several factors jointly result in DHH children's input being under-described at both individual and population levels: for example, overly simplistic ways of classifying input, and the lack of tools for assessing input more thoroughly. To address these limitations, this Conceptual Analysis proposes a new way of characterizing a DHH child's cumulative experience with input, and outlines the features that a tool would need to have in order to measure this alternative construct.

The Limits of "Communication Mode" as a Construct.

Questions about communication mode (a.k.a. "communication options" or "communication opportunities") remain among the most controversial issues in the many fields that are concerned with the development and well-being of children (and adults) who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing. In this manuscript, we argue that a large part of the reason that this debate persists is due to limitations of the construct itself. We focus on what we term "the crucial question": namely, what kind of experience with linguistic input during infancy and toddlerhood is most likely to result in mastery of at least one language (spoken or signed) by school entry. We argue that the construct of communication mode-as currently construed-actively prevents the discovery of compelling answers to that question. To substantiate our argument, we present a review of a relevant subset of the recent empirical literature and document the prevalence of our concerns. We conclude by articulating the desiderata of an alternative construct that, if appropriately measured, would have the potential to yield answers to what we identify as "the crucial question."

Monitoring Blood Biomarkers and Training Load Throughout a Collegiate Soccer Season.

Huggins, RA, Fortunati, AR, Curtis, RM, Looney, DP, West, CA, Lee, EC, Fragala, MS, Hall, ML, and Casa, DJ. Monitoring blood biomarkers and training load throughout a collegiate soccer season. J Strength Cond Res 33(11): 3065-3077, 2019-This observational study aimed to characterize the responses of a comprehensive panel of biomarkers, observed ranges, training load (TL) metrics, and performance throughout the collegiate soccer season (August-November). Biomarkers (n = 92) were collected before the start of pre-season (PS), in-season weeks (W)1, W4, W8, and W12 in NCAA Division I male soccer players (n = 20, mean ± SD; age = 21 ± 1 years, height = 180 ± 6 cm, body mass = 78.19 ± 6.3 kg, body fat = 12.0 ± 2.6%, VO2max 51.5 ± 5.1 ml·kg·min). Fitness tests were measured at PS, and W12 and TL was monitored daily. Changes in biomarkers and performance were calculated via separate repeated-measures analysis of variance. Despite similar fitness (p > 0.05), endocrine, muscle, inflammatory, and immune markers changed over time (p < 0.05). Total and free testosterone was lower in W1 vs. PS, whereas free cortisol remained unchanged at PS, W1, and W4 (>0.94 mg·dL). Oxygen transport and iron metabolism markers remained unchanged except for HCT (W1 vs. PS) and total iron binding capacity (W8-W12 vs. W1). Hepatic markers albumin, globulin, albumin:globulin, and total protein levels were elevated (p < 0.05) at W12 vs. W1, whereas aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase levels were elevated at W1-W12 and W8-W12 vs. PS, respectively. Vitamin E, zinc, selenium, and calcium levels were elevated (p < 0.05) at W12 vs. W1, whereas Vitamin D was decreased (p < 0.05). Fatty acids and cardiovascular markers (omega-3 index, cholesterol:high-density lipoprotein [HDL], docosahexenoic acid, low-density lipoprotein [LDL], direct LDL, non-HDL, ApoB) were reduced at W1 vs. PS (p ≤ 0.05). Immune, lipid, and muscle damage biomarkers were frequently outside clinical reference ranges. Routine biomarker monitoring revealed subclinical and clinical changes, suggesting soccer-specific reference ranges. Biomarker monitoring may augment positive adaptation and reduce injuries from stressors incurred during soccer.

Executive Function in Deaf Children: Auditory Access and Language Access.

Purpose: Deaf children are frequently reported to be at risk for difficulties in executive function (EF); however, the literature is divided over whether these difficulties are the result of deafness itself or of delays/deficits in language that often co-occur with deafness. The purpose of this study is to discriminate these hypotheses by assessing EF in populations where the 2 accounts make contrasting predictions. Method: We use a between-groups design involving 116 children, ages 5-12 years, across 3 groups: (a) participants with normal hearing (n = 45), (b) deaf native signers who had access to American Sign Language from birth (n = 45), and (c) oral cochlear implant users who did not have full access to language prior to cochlear implantation (n = 26). Measures include both parent report and performance-based assessments of EF. Results: Parent report results suggest that early access to language has a stronger impact on EF than early access to sound. Performance-based results trended in a similar direction, but no between-group differences were significant. Conclusions: These results indicate that healthy EF skills do not require audition and therefore that difficulties in this domain do not result primarily from a lack of auditory experience. Instead, results are consistent with the hypothesis that language proficiency, whether in sign or speech, is crucial for the development of healthy EF. Further research is needed to test whether sign language proficiency also confers benefits to deaf children from hearing families.

Auditory access, language access, and implicit sequence learning in deaf children.

Developmental psychology plays a central role in shaping evidence-based best practices for prelingually deaf children. The Auditory Scaffolding Hypothesis (Conway et al., 2009) asserts that a lack of auditory stimulation in deaf children leads to impoverished implicit sequence learning abilities, measured via an artificial grammar learning (AGL) task. However, prior research is confounded by a lack of both auditory and language input. The current study examines implicit learning in deaf children who were (Deaf native signers) or were not (oral cochlear implant users) exposed to language from birth, and in hearing children, using both AGL and Serial Reaction Time (SRT) tasks. Neither deaf nor hearing children across the three groups show evidence of implicit learning on the AGL task, but all three groups show robust implicit learning on the SRT task. These findings argue against the Auditory Scaffolding Hypothesis, and suggest that implicit sequence learning may be resilient to both auditory and language deprivation, within the tested limits. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/EeqfQqlVHLI [Correction added on 07 August 2017, after first online publication: The video abstract link was added.].

Auditory Deprivation Does Not Impair Executive Function, But Language Deprivation Might: Evidence From a Parent-Report Measure in Deaf Native Signing Children.

Deaf children are often described as having difficulty with executive function (EF), often manifesting in behavioral problems. Some researchers view these problems as a consequence of auditory deprivation; however, the behavioral problems observed in previous studies may not be due to deafness but to some other factor, such as lack of early language exposure. Here, we distinguish these accounts by using the BRIEF EF parent report questionnaire to test for behavioral problems in a group of Deaf children from Deaf families, who have a history of auditory but not language deprivation. For these children, the auditory deprivation hypothesis predicts behavioral impairments; the language deprivation hypothesis predicts no group differences in behavioral control. Results indicated that scores among the Deaf native signers (n = 42) were age-appropriate and similar to scores among the typically developing hearing sample (n = 45). These findings are most consistent with the language deprivation hypothesis, and provide a foundation for continued research on outcomes of children with early exposure to sign language.

Pros and cons of blurring gesture-language lines: An evolutionary linguistic perspective.

The target article's emphasis on distinguishing sign from gesture may resolve one important objection to gesture-first theories of language evolution. However, this approach risks undervaluing the gradual progression from nonlanguage to language over hominin evolution, and in emerging sign systems today. I call for less emphasis on drawing boundaries and more emphasis on understanding the processes of change.

Acceptability judgments still matter: Deafness and documentation.

The target article's call to end reliance on acceptability judgments is premature. First, it restricts syntactic inquiry to cases were a semantically equivalent alternative is available. Second, priming studies require groups of participants who are linguistically homogenous and whose grammar is known to the researcher. These requirements would eliminate two major research areas: syntactic competence in d/Deaf individuals, and language documentation. (We follow the convention of using deaf to describe hearing levels, Deaf to describe cultural identity, and d/Deaf to include both. Our own work has focused on Deaf signers, but the same concerns could apply to other deaf populations.).

Syntactic priming in American Sign Language.

Psycholinguistic studies of sign language processing provide valuable opportunities to assess whether language phenomena, which are primarily studied in spoken language, are fundamentally shaped by peripheral biology. For example, we know that when given a choice between two syntactically permissible ways to express the same proposition, speakers tend to choose structures that were recently used, a phenomenon known as syntactic priming. Here, we report two experiments testing syntactic priming of a noun phrase construction in American Sign Language (ASL). Experiment 1 shows that second language (L2) signers with normal hearing exhibit syntactic priming in ASL and that priming is stronger when the head noun is repeated between prime and target (the lexical boost effect). Experiment 2 shows that syntactic priming is equally strong among deaf native L1 signers, deaf late L1 learners, and hearing L2 signers. Experiment 2 also tested for, but did not find evidence of, phonological or semantic boosts to syntactic priming in ASL. These results show that despite the profound differences between spoken and signed languages in terms of how they are produced and perceived, the psychological representation of sentence structure (as assessed by syntactic priming) operates similarly in sign and speech.

Production and comprehension show divergent constituent order preferences: Evidence from elicited pantomime.

All natural languages develop devices to communicate who did what to whom. Elicited pantomime provides one model for studying this process, by providing a window into how humans (hearing non-signers) behave in a natural communicative modality (silent gesture) without established conventions from a grammar. Most studies in this paradigm focus on production, although they sometimes make assumptions about how comprehenders would likely behave. Here, we directly assess how naïve speakers of English (Experiments 1 & 2), Korean (Experiment 1), and Turkish (Experiment 2) comprehend pantomimed descriptions of transitive events, which are either semantically reversible (Experiments 1 & 2) or not (Experiment 2). Contrary to previous assumptions, we find no evidence that Person-Person-Action sequences are ambiguous to comprehenders, who simply adopt an agent-first parsing heuristic for all constituent orders. We do find that Person-Action-Person sequences yield the most consistent interpretations, even in native speakers of SOV languages. The full range of behavior in both production and comprehension provides counter-evidence to the notion that producers' utterances are motivated by the needs of comprehenders. Instead, we argue that production and comprehension are subject to different sets of cognitive pressures, and that the dynamic interaction between these competing pressures can help explain synchronic and diachronic constituent order phenomena in natural human languages, both signed and spoken.

Investigating constituent order change with elicited pantomime: a functional account of SVO emergence.

One of the most basic functions of human language is to convey who did what to whom. In the world's languages, the order of these three constituents (subject [S], verb [V], and object [O]) is uneven, with SOV and SVO being most common. Recent experiments using experimentally elicited pantomime provide a possible explanation of the prevalence of SOV, but extant explanations for the prevalence of SVO could benefit from further empirical support. Here, we test whether SVO might emerge because (a) SOV is not well suited for describing reversible events (a woman pushing a boy) and (b) pressures to be efficient and mention subjects before objects conspire to rule out many other alternatives. We tested this by asking participants to describe reversible and non-reversible events in pantomime, and we instructed some participants to be consistent in the form of their gestures and to teach them to the experimenter. These manipulations led to the emergence of SVO in speakers of both English (SVO) and Turkish (SOV).

Subjective frequency ratings for 432 ASL signs.

Given the importance of lexical frequency for psycholinguistic research and the lack of comprehensive frequency data for sign languages, we collected subjective estimates of lexical frequency for 432 signs in American Sign Language (ASL). Our participants were 59 deaf signers who first began to acquire ASL at ages ranging from birth to 14 years old and who had a minimum of 10 years of experience. Subjective frequency estimates were made on a scale ranging from 1 = rarely see the sign to 7 = always see the sign. The mean subjective frequency ratings for individual signs did not vary in relation to age of sign language exposure (AoLE), chronological age, or length of ASL experience. Nor did AoLE show significant effects on the response times (RTs) for making the ratings. However, RTs were highly correlated with mean frequency ratings. These results suggest that the distributions of subjective lexical frequencies are consistent across signers with varying AoLEs. The implications for research practice are that subjective frequency ratings from random samples of highly experienced deaf signers can provide a reasonable measure of lexical control in sign language experiments. The Appendix gives the mean and median subjective frequency ratings and the mean and median log(RT) of the ASL signs for the entire sample; the supplemental material gives these measures for the three AoLE groups: native, early, and late.

Cognitive constraints on constituent order: evidence from elicited pantomime.

To what extent does human cognition influence the structure of human language? Recent experiments using elicited pantomime suggest that the prevalence of Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) order across the world's languages may arise in part because SOV order is most compatible with how we conceptually represent transitive events (Goldin-Meadow, So, Özyürek, & Mylander, 2008). However, this raises the question as to why non-SOV orders exist. Two recent studies (Meir, Lifshitz, Ilkbasaran, & Padden, 2010; Gibson et al., 2013) suggest that SOV might be suboptimal for describing events in which both the agent and patient are plausible agents (e.g. a woman pushing a boy); we call these "reversible" events. We replicate these findings using elicited pantomime and offer a new interpretation. Meir et al.'s (2010) account is framed largely in terms of constraints on comprehension, while Gibson et al.'s (2013) account involves minimizing the risk of information loss or memory degradation. We offer an alternative hypothesis that is grounded in constraints on production. We consider the implications of these findings for the distribution of constituent order in the world's spoken languages and for the structure of emerging sign languages.

Short-term memory stages in sign vs. speech: the source of the serial span discrepancy.

Speakers generally outperform signers when asked to recall a list of unrelated verbal items. This phenomenon is well established, but its source has remained unclear. In this study, we evaluate the relative contribution of the three main processing stages of short-term memory--perception, encoding, and recall--in this effect. The present study factorially manipulates whether American Sign Language (ASL) or English is used for perception, memory encoding, and recall in hearing ASL-English bilinguals. Results indicate that using ASL during both perception and encoding contributes to the serial span discrepancy. Interestingly, performing recall in ASL slightly increased span, ruling out the view that signing is in general a poor choice for short-term memory. These results suggest that despite the general equivalence of sign and speech in other memory domains, speech-based representations are better suited for the specific task of perception and memory encoding of a series of unrelated verbal items in serial order through the phonological loop. This work suggests that interpretation of performance on serial recall tasks in English may not translate straightforwardly to serial tasks in sign language.

Bilingual picture-word studies constrain theories of lexical selection.

Whether lexical selection is by competition is the subject of current debate in studies of monolingual language production. Here, I consider whether extant data from bilinguals can inform this debate. In bilinguals, theories that accept the notion of lexical selection by competition are divided between those positing competition among all lexical nodes vs. those that restrict competition to nodes in the target language only. An alternative view rejects selection by competition altogether, putting the locus of selection in a phonological output buffer, where some potential responses are easier to exclude than others. These theories make contrasting predictions about how quickly bilinguals should name pictures when non-target responses are activated. In Part 1, I establish the empirical facts for which any successful theory must account. In Part 2, I evaluate how well each theory accounts for the data. I argue that the data do not support theories that reject lexical selection by competition, and that although theories where competition for selection is restricted to the target language can be altered to fit the data, doing so would fundamentally undermine the distinctness of their position. Theories where selection is by competition throughout both target and non-target language lexicons must also be modified to account for the data, but these modifications are relatively peripheral to the theoretical impetus of the model. Throughout, I identify areas where our empirical facts are sparse, weak, or absent, and propose additional experiments that should help to further establish how lexical selection works, in both monolinguals and bilinguals.