ENGLISH READING ABILITY IN YOUNG DEAF SIGNERS AN INVESTIGATION OF SENTENCE COMPREHENSION

We performed a detailed investigation of the robust correlation between ASL and English reading ability in 54 deaf students aged 7;3 to 19;0. Skilled and unskilled signers were assessed on four English sentence structures (actives, passives, pronouns, reflexive pronouns) using a four-alternative forced choice sentence-to-picture-matching task, providing a window into how ASL skill is related to English sentence comprehension. Of interest was the extent to which proficiency in LI provided a foundation for L2 learning as predicted by Cummins’ developmental interdependence hypothesis. Skilled signers outperformed unskilled signers on all sentence types. Error analysis indicated greater word recognition difficulties in unskilled signers. Syntactic structures mapping directly from LI to L2 were more accurately understood than structures mapping in less obvious ways, consistent with MacWhinney’s unified competition model. Our findings provide evidence that increased ASL ability supports English sentence comprehension at the levels of individual words and syntax.

Name thesis:degree_name

M Sc

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Maxwell, Kathy N.

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Joanisse, Marc
• McRae, Ken

• deaf
• American Sign Language (ASL)
• English
• reading
• sentence comprehension
• word recognition
• syntax
• passives
• pronouns
• developmental interdependence hypothesis
• Unified Competition Model

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14721/19343

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uwo.scholaris.ca:20.500.14721/19343