Specific Language Impairment in American Sign Language
American Sign Language (ASL) is the native language of many members of the Deaf community in the United States. Little is known about specific language impairment (SLI), a communication disorder affecting the acquisition and use of language, as it relates to ASL. SLI can affect several aspects of life such as academic and social domains. This research attempted to determine how SLI might manifest in a user of ASL, including a review of the structure and grammar of ASL as well as a review of the various symptoms and markers of SLI in terms of spoken language, specifically English. A comparative analysis of English and ASL was done in order to hypothesize how the symptoms and markers of SLI in English-speakers might affect a user of ASL. After reviewing previous research, we have hypothesized that a user of ASL would be affected similarly by SLI as a person who uses spoken language in certain areas such as delayed language development and delayed grammar acquisition. The areas of language that were explored in the present study included: word-learning, verb use, tense marking, pronoun use, subject-object agreement, and determiners. The hypotheses presented here should be considered when evaluating language in users of ASL as well as diagnosis of language and learning disabilities in Deaf children.
School:
Hampton University
Department:
Communicative Sciences and Disorders
Research Advisor:
David Quinto-Pozos
Department of Research Advisor:
Department of Speech and Hearing Science
Year of Publication:
2005