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Early vocabulary development in deaf native signers: a British Sign Language adaptation of the communicative development inventories
Author(s) -
Woolfe Tyron,
Herman Rosalind,
Roy Penny,
Woll Bencie
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2009.02151.x
Subject(s) - psychology , sign language , vocabulary , developmental psychology , language development , vocabulary development , linguistics , philosophy
Background: There is a dearth of assessments of sign language development in young deaf children. This study gathered age‐related scores from a sample of deaf native signing children using an adapted version of the MacArthur‐Bates CDI (Fenson et al., 1994). Method: Parental reports on children’s receptive and expressive signing were collected longitudinally on 29 deaf native British Sign Language (BSL) users, aged 8–36 months, yielding 146 datasets. Results: A smooth upward growth curve was obtained for early vocabulary development and percentile scores were derived. In the main, receptive scores were in advance of expressive scores. No gender bias was observed. Correlational analysis identified factors associated with vocabulary development, including parental education and mothers’ training in BSL. Individual children’s profiles showed a range of development and some evidence of a growth spurt. Clinical and research issues relating to the measure are discussed. Conclusions: The study has developed a valid, reliable measure of vocabulary development in BSL. Further research is needed to investigate the relationship between vocabulary acquisition in native and non‐native signers.