Please check my updated website for more information about me and my research (including other papers not posted here) Address: Storrs, Connecticut, United States
Developmental psychology plays a central role in shaping evidence-based best practices for prelin... more 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.
Deaf children are often described as having difficulty with executive function (EF), often manife... more 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.
... Chinese and English Qi Wang and Diane Lillo-Martin University of Connecticut and Haskins Labo... more ... Chinese and English Qi Wang and Diane Lillo-Martin University of Connecticut and Haskins Laboratories ... Requests for reprints should be sent to Qi Wang or Diane Lillo-Martin, Haskins Labora-tories, 270 Crown Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Page 2. ...
The approach to answering this question taken by generative linguistics has been to attempt to ch... more The approach to answering this question taken by generative linguistics has been to attempt to characterize those aspects of language which are constant across languages ('universals'), and those which vary. Concrete formalization of these properties provides the answer to (i). The answer to (ii) involves the postulation that the universal properties are innately given as Principles of Universal Grammar – part of the human genome.
It has been claimed that in American Sign Language (ASL), the sign glossed as IX is used for a va... more It has been claimed that in American Sign Language (ASL), the sign glossed as IX is used for a variety of functions, including personal pronouns, locatives, and determiners (Meier and Lillo-Martin 2013). We propose to unify these disparate functions by analyzing IX as a demonstrative, appearing with or without an overt complement. Appealingly simple, this move accounts for a wide range of facts regarding the distribution and interpretation of IX.
We focus on points to third-person referents. Such points are directed toward loci – real people, objects, or locations in the physical space around the signer, or places (possibly
arbitrarily) associated with their referents in the signed discourse (Lillo-Martin and Klima 1990). The loci themselves raise considerable interesting issues (Barberà 2012, Gagne and Davidson 2014); however, their contribution is often conflated with the contribution of IX alone. Thus, we specifically ask: for a sign involving pointing, what is the nature of IX (i.e. the lexical item
realized in a pointing hand-shape) when dissociated from the issue of locus (i.e. the space where it points to)?
We report two findings on pointing by Bimodal Bilingual (Bibi) children and their interlocutors. ... more We report two findings on pointing by Bimodal Bilingual (Bibi) children and their interlocutors. First, along with Petitto (1987), we found that signing children avoid the use of first person pronouns in their sign. The result cannot be explained by the lack of first person forms in adult data since they do exist in adult productions. Therefore, we conclude that linguistic learning of the use of pointing as person pronouns and further differentiation between persons might be necessary despite apparent iconicity. Second, we found that the Bibi children used gaze to the addressee more than the hearing children reported in Lieberman et al. (2014), but less in speech target sessions than in sign target sessions. We attribute this result to the unique nature of bimodal bilingualism, which permits an enhancement of language ‘synthesis’ (Lillo-Martin et al. 2010).
We investigated effects of sign language experience on deaf and hearing participants’ categorical... more We investigated effects of sign language experience on deaf and hearing participants’ categorical perception of minimal manual contrast stimuli that met key criteria of speech perception research. A continuum of meaningless dynamic stimuli was created with a morphing approach, which manipulated videorecorded productions of phonotactically permissible pseudosigns differing between American Sign Language (ASL) handshapes that contrast on a single articulatory dimension (U—V: finger-spreading). AXB discrimination and AXB categorization and goodness ratings on the target items were completed by deaf early (native) signers (DE), deaf late (nonnative) signers (DL), hearing late (L2) signers (HL), and hearing nonsigners (HN). Categorization and goodness functions were less categorical and had different boundaries for DL participants than for DE and HL participants. Shape and level of discrimination functions also differed by ASL experience and hearing status, with DL signers showing better performance than DE, HL, and especially HN participants, particularly at the U end of the continuum. Although no group displayed a peak in discrimination at the category boundary, thus failing to support classic categorical perception, discrimination was consistent with categorization in other ways that differed among the groups. Thus, perception of phonetic variations underlying this minimal sign contrast is systematically affected by language experience.
Developmental psychology plays a central role in shaping evidence-based best practices for prelin... more 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.
Deaf children are often described as having difficulty with executive function (EF), often manife... more 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.
... Chinese and English Qi Wang and Diane Lillo-Martin University of Connecticut and Haskins Labo... more ... Chinese and English Qi Wang and Diane Lillo-Martin University of Connecticut and Haskins Laboratories ... Requests for reprints should be sent to Qi Wang or Diane Lillo-Martin, Haskins Labora-tories, 270 Crown Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Page 2. ...
The approach to answering this question taken by generative linguistics has been to attempt to ch... more The approach to answering this question taken by generative linguistics has been to attempt to characterize those aspects of language which are constant across languages ('universals'), and those which vary. Concrete formalization of these properties provides the answer to (i). The answer to (ii) involves the postulation that the universal properties are innately given as Principles of Universal Grammar – part of the human genome.
It has been claimed that in American Sign Language (ASL), the sign glossed as IX is used for a va... more It has been claimed that in American Sign Language (ASL), the sign glossed as IX is used for a variety of functions, including personal pronouns, locatives, and determiners (Meier and Lillo-Martin 2013). We propose to unify these disparate functions by analyzing IX as a demonstrative, appearing with or without an overt complement. Appealingly simple, this move accounts for a wide range of facts regarding the distribution and interpretation of IX.
We focus on points to third-person referents. Such points are directed toward loci – real people, objects, or locations in the physical space around the signer, or places (possibly
arbitrarily) associated with their referents in the signed discourse (Lillo-Martin and Klima 1990). The loci themselves raise considerable interesting issues (Barberà 2012, Gagne and Davidson 2014); however, their contribution is often conflated with the contribution of IX alone. Thus, we specifically ask: for a sign involving pointing, what is the nature of IX (i.e. the lexical item
realized in a pointing hand-shape) when dissociated from the issue of locus (i.e. the space where it points to)?
We report two findings on pointing by Bimodal Bilingual (Bibi) children and their interlocutors. ... more We report two findings on pointing by Bimodal Bilingual (Bibi) children and their interlocutors. First, along with Petitto (1987), we found that signing children avoid the use of first person pronouns in their sign. The result cannot be explained by the lack of first person forms in adult data since they do exist in adult productions. Therefore, we conclude that linguistic learning of the use of pointing as person pronouns and further differentiation between persons might be necessary despite apparent iconicity. Second, we found that the Bibi children used gaze to the addressee more than the hearing children reported in Lieberman et al. (2014), but less in speech target sessions than in sign target sessions. We attribute this result to the unique nature of bimodal bilingualism, which permits an enhancement of language ‘synthesis’ (Lillo-Martin et al. 2010).
We investigated effects of sign language experience on deaf and hearing participants’ categorical... more We investigated effects of sign language experience on deaf and hearing participants’ categorical perception of minimal manual contrast stimuli that met key criteria of speech perception research. A continuum of meaningless dynamic stimuli was created with a morphing approach, which manipulated videorecorded productions of phonotactically permissible pseudosigns differing between American Sign Language (ASL) handshapes that contrast on a single articulatory dimension (U—V: finger-spreading). AXB discrimination and AXB categorization and goodness ratings on the target items were completed by deaf early (native) signers (DE), deaf late (nonnative) signers (DL), hearing late (L2) signers (HL), and hearing nonsigners (HN). Categorization and goodness functions were less categorical and had different boundaries for DL participants than for DE and HL participants. Shape and level of discrimination functions also differed by ASL experience and hearing status, with DL signers showing better performance than DE, HL, and especially HN participants, particularly at the U end of the continuum. Although no group displayed a peak in discrimination at the category boundary, thus failing to support classic categorical perception, discrimination was consistent with categorization in other ways that differed among the groups. Thus, perception of phonetic variations underlying this minimal sign contrast is systematically affected by language experience.
We investigate the eyegaze behavior of Bimodal Bilingual children who use a sign language and a s... more We investigate the eyegaze behavior of Bimodal Bilingual children who use a sign language and a spoken language and their interlocutors from a linguistic and developmental perspective. Parallel to previous research (Lillo-Martin & Meier 2011 and Thompson et al. 2013), we found that eyegaze does not differentiate non-first person pronouns in a categorical/morphological manner, contrary to some predictions. Rather, eyegaze has discourse/pragmatic and developmental roles in that its distribution is shaped by the needs of the interlocutors. Eyegaze in adult-to-child interactions is used to establish joint attention (Lieberman et al. 2011, 2014) and to maintain the attention of the child and the adult on the task with very little affordance for looking away, contrasting with eyegaze in an adult-to-adult context where there is more affordance for the adults to look away to keep the conversational floor (cf. Baker 1977).
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Papers by Diane Lillo-Martin
We focus on points to third-person referents. Such points are directed toward loci – real people, objects, or locations in the physical space around the signer, or places (possibly
arbitrarily) associated with their referents in the signed discourse (Lillo-Martin and Klima 1990). The loci themselves raise considerable interesting issues (Barberà 2012, Gagne and Davidson 2014); however, their contribution is often conflated with the contribution of IX alone. Thus, we specifically ask: for a sign involving pointing, what is the nature of IX (i.e. the lexical item
realized in a pointing hand-shape) when dissociated from the issue of locus (i.e. the space where it points to)?
We focus on points to third-person referents. Such points are directed toward loci – real people, objects, or locations in the physical space around the signer, or places (possibly
arbitrarily) associated with their referents in the signed discourse (Lillo-Martin and Klima 1990). The loci themselves raise considerable interesting issues (Barberà 2012, Gagne and Davidson 2014); however, their contribution is often conflated with the contribution of IX alone. Thus, we specifically ask: for a sign involving pointing, what is the nature of IX (i.e. the lexical item
realized in a pointing hand-shape) when dissociated from the issue of locus (i.e. the space where it points to)?