Language Deprivation and the American Sign Language Lexicon
Join us on Monday, August 5th at 3:00 PM for a guest talk featuring Naomi Caselli, Assistant Professor of Deaf Studies at BU’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development!
Event Details
Date: Monday, August 5, 2019
Time: 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Location: Seminar Room, Hariri Institute for Computing
Language Deprivation and the American Sign Language Lexicon
The majority of deaf children experience a period of limited exposure to language (spoken or signed), which has cascading effects on many aspects of cognition. It is critical to understand how children build a vocabulary in sign language, and whether and how this differs for deaf children who have limited exposure to a sign language. In order to ask these questions, we have developed ASL-LEX, a lexical database cataloguing more than 50 pieces of information about 2,500 ASL signs. It includes, among other things, information about each sign’s phonological structure, how frequently it is used, its part of speech, and how well it rhymes with other signs in ASL. ASL-LEX makes it possible to focus vocabulary instruction on, for example, the most common signs or the most phonologically complex signs. We are currently working with the Software & Application Innovation Lab (SAIL) at the Hariri Institute to develop the second release of ASL-LEX, an interactive visualization of the phonological structure of the ASL lexicon.
Naomi Caselli, Assistant Professor at BU’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development, studies the effects of limited language exposure on cognition in d/Deaf children. Her recent work explores the lasting effects of early language experience on the perception of sign language. Prior to her doctoral studies at Tufts University, she earned an Ed.M. in Deaf Education and an M.A. in Psychology from Boston University. She also worked as a nationally certified ASL-English interpreter for nine years.