Amy M. Lieberman
Director, Doctoral Studies
Associate Professor
Dr. Amy Lieberman is an associate professor in the Language & Literacy Education Department and serves as the director of doctoral studies at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. Dr. Lieberman’s research explores how deaf children acquire American Sign Language (ASL), with a focus in how children learn to perceive language and information through the visual modality.
Dr. Lieberman leads an NIH-funded investigation of word learning and attention in deaf and hard-of-hearing children, and also studies how early language experience influences language processing in deaf adults and children. She works with preservice teachers in BU Wheelock’s Deaf Studies program, which uses a multilingual approach to educating deaf students. Dr. Lieberman previously taught early childhood deaf education.
Recent News
Education
PhD, Special Education, University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University
MA, Education (Cognition and Development), University of California, Berkeley
BA, Human Biology, Stanford University
Courses
DE 531: Early Language and Social Learning in Deaf Children
DE 352: Capstone--Deaf Studies
ED 130 / ED 131: Exploring Professions that Impact Lives
Selected Publications
Berger, L., Pyers, J., Lieberman, A., & Caselli, N. (2023). Parent American Sign Language skills correlate with child–but not toddler–ASL vocabulary size. Language Acquisition, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/10489223.2023.2178312
Pontecorvo, E., Higgins, M., Mora, J., Lieberman, A. M., Pyers, J., & Caselli, N. K. (2023). Learning a sign language does not hinder acquisition of a spoken language. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 66(4), 1291-1308. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00505
Rubio-Fernandez, P., Wienholz, A., Ballard, C. M., Kirby, S., & Lieberman, A. M. (2022). Adjective position and referential efficiency in American Sign Language: Effects of adjective semantics, sign type and age of sign exposure. Journal of Memory and Language, 126, 104348. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2022.104348
Lieberman, A. M., Mitchiner, J., & Pontecorvo, E. (2022). Hearing parents learning American Sign Language with their deaf children: a mixed-methods survey. Applied Linguistics Review. https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2021-0120
Lieberman, A. M., Fitch, A., & Borovsky, A. (2022). Flexible fast‐mapping: Deaf children dynamically allocate visual attention to learn novel words in American Sign Language. Developmental science, 25(3), e13166. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13166
Selected Presentations
Sander J., Rowland, C., & Lieberman, A.M. (2023, September). Exploring Joint Attention in American Sign Language: The Influence of Sign Familiarity. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Sydney, Australia.
Higgins, M., Fitch, A., & Lieberman, A.M. (2022, November). Deaf children’s gaze shift during natural interaction in ASL supports efficient referential attention. Paper presented at the 47th Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA.
Gappmayr, P., & Lieberman, A. M. (2022, November). The alignment of deaf children’s gaze with parent ASL input. Poster presented at the 47th Boston University Conference on Language Development, Boston, MA.
Fitch., A., & Lieberman, A.M. (2022, July). Attention and iconicity in child-directed signing with novel objects. Presented as part of the symposium “The consequences of sign and gesture on attention and cognition” at the International Society for Gesture Studies conference (ISGS9), Chicago, IL.