Acquiring a first language in adolescence: the case of basic word order in American Sign Language.
Qi Cheng, Rachel I Mayberry
PMID 30326985WHAT IT FOUND
Deaf adolescents learning ASL after early language deprivation gradually preferred basic word order, like young children, but took longer.
Their varied orders mostly followed specific verbs, and topic markers were often missing.
Key findings
01All four adolescents increasingly used basic word order as their ASL exposure grew.
02They took longer to reach the basic word order stage than young native ASL children.
03Their varied word orders were mostly tied to a small set of verbs, and they often omitted the non-manual topic markers needed for adult-like object-fronting.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only four adolescents were described, and the language samples were small, so the patterns could be due to chance. The participants in Study 1 lived together in the same group home, so mutual influence or shared input could have shaped the word order patterns. The filming sessions were spaced far apart, making it difficult to pinpoint when word order changed. The researchers did not know whether the later high use of canonical word order was adult-like, because adult ASL input frequencies were not established. It was unclear whether object-fronted orders reflected learned grammatical rules or memorized verb-specific phrases. The participants' pre-ASL home sign systems were not documented, so earlier gestural patterns could have influenced ASL production.
Declared interests
The article metadata lists NIH extramural research support. No conflicts-of-interest or author declaration is supplied.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat these four adolescents as evidence that any therapy or ASL instruction causes word order improvement. No intervention was tested, the samples were small, and the group home environment may have shaped the patterns.