Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “Sign Language”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 559 records · Page 31Linked to original sources
PubMed1976

Communication problems in hearing children of deaf parents.

Fifty-two children who had deaf parents and were thought to have normal hearing were evaluated for speech, hearing, and language problems. Standardized tests, audiological evaluations, and informal conversation and play techniques were used. Of the 52 children of deaf parents, less than half were considered to be developing speech and language normally and 12% had previously undiagnosed hearing loss. The prevalence of speech and language problems and hearing losses is higher in this population than in the population at large. The children appeared to be using two systems to communicate, one with hearing people and one with the deaf. Of the children having some speech and language difficulty, approximately half had problems that were not associated with other known physiological or environmental factors that might affect speech and language. Although there were no children of intelligible mothers who had speech and language problems, there were children developing normally who had parents whose speech intelligibility was poor. Contrary to indications in the literature, speech and language problems did not disappear after the children entered school. A large number of school-age children as well as preschoolers appeared to be having speech and language problems. The amount of time spent with hearing adults during the preschool years or the presence of older normal-hearing and -speaking siblings did not seem related to speech and language difficulty. However, when an elder sibling had speech and language difficulty, the younger siblings tended to have similar problems. The relationship between sign and oral language development is ambiguous, but there is no indication that the use of sign language deters oral language development. In view of the high incidence of communication problems in this population, annual audiological evaluations and counseling of deaf parents concerning aspects of hearing loss and normal language development are recommended. The problems encountered in providing therapy are discussed.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1994

Wernicke and Alzheimer on the language disturbances of dementia and aphasia.

Signs of language dysfunction in dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT) and in the aphasic syndromes of transcortical sensory aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia are superficially similar. The unresolved question concerning the extent to which the language disturbances of DAT are "aphasic" is linked to a more fundamental question concerning the relation of language to thought, given that aphasia is often defined as language disturbance without disturbance of intellect, and dementia as dissolution of intellectual function, of which language forms an integral part. In this paper we explore the historical roots of today's debate by analyzing the original case studies of Wernicke (1874) and Alzheimer (1907, 1911). Although each of these neurologists described similar patterns of language disturbance, they drew different conclusions. Wernicke argued for a distinction between language and thought and between the language disturbances of aphasia and those of dementia. Alzheimer continued the then dominant paradigm of aphasia in describing the language disturbances of his demented patients as aphasic. Paradoxically his conclusion makes him appear, in contrast to Wernicke, to argue for the identity of the language disturbances of aphasia and dementia. Yet he himself acknowledged that the presence of focal language symptoms arising from diffuse degenerative pathology was indeed problematic. We conclude that today's discussion could profitably be refocused on the question which emerges from the original works of Wernicke and Alzheimer, which Alzheimer himself asked, and which remains unanswered: How can diffuse cerebral pathology give rise to a pattern of language deficit virtually identical to that of a focal lesion?

Aged↗
PubMed2000

Speech, vocabulary, and the education of children using cochlear implants: oral or total communication?

This study examines the relationship between the teaching method, oral or total communication, used at children's schools and children's consonant-production accuracy and vocabulary development over time. Children who participated in the study (N = 147) demonstrated profound sensorineural hearing loss and had used cochlear implants for between 6 months and 10 years. Educational programs that used an oral communication (OC) approach focused on the development of spoken language, whereas educational programs that used a total communication (TC) approach focused on the development of language using both signed and spoken language. Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) we compared the consonant-production accuracy, receptive spoken vocabulary, and expressive spoken and/or signed vocabulary skills, over time, of children who were enrolled in schools that used either OC or TC approaches, while controlling for a number of variables. These variables included age at implantation, preoperative aided speech detection thresholds, type of cochlear implant device used, and whether a complete or incomplete active electrode array was implanted. The results of this study indicated that as they used their implants the children demonstrated improved consonant-production accuracy and expressive and receptive vocabulary over time, regardless of whether their school employed a TC or OC teaching method. Furthermore, there appeared to be a complex relationship among children's performance with the cochlear implant, age at implantation, and communication/teaching strategy employed by the school. Controlling for all variables, children in OC programs demonstrated, on average, superior consonant-production accuracy, with significantly greater rates of improvement in consonant-production accuracy scores over time compared to children in TC programs. However, there was no significant difference between OC and TC groups in performance or rate of growth in consonant-production accuracy when children received their implants before the age of 5 years. There was no significant difference between the OC and TC groups in receptive spoken vocabulary scores or in rate of improvement over time. However, children in the TC group achieved significantly higher receptive spoken vocabulary scores than children in the OC group if they received their implant before the age of 5 years. The TC group demonstrated superior scores and rates of growth on the expressive vocabulary measure (spoken and/or signed) when compared to the OC group if they received their implants during their preschool or early elementary school years. There was no significant difference if the children received their implants during middle elementary school. Regardless of whether children were in the OC or TC group, children who received their implants during preschool demonstrated stronger performance, on average, on all measures over time than children who received their implants during their elementary school years. The results of this study suggest that children may benefit from using cochlear implants regardless of the communication strategy/teaching approach employed by their school program and that other considerations, such as the age at which children receive implants, are more important. Implications and future research needs are discussed.

Child Language↗
PubMed2002

Language-impaired children: No sign of the FOXP2 mutation.

A mutation in the FOXP2 gene has been found to be responsible for the autosomal dominant inheritance of a severe form of speech and language impairment in a family known as KE. We genotyped the FOXP2 mutation for 270 4-year-old children selected for low general language scores from a representative community sample of more than 18,000 children. No language-impaired child had the FOXP2 mutation. Although rare severe disorders such as those of the KE family are often caused by a single gene, common disorders such as language impairment are more likely to be the quantitative extreme of the same multiple genetic factors responsible for heritability throughout the distribution.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1991

The evolution of the critical period for language acquisition.

Evidence suggests that there is a critical, or at least a sensitive, period for language acquisition, which ends around puberty. The existence of this period is explained by an evolutionary model which assumes that (a) linguistic ability is in principle (if not in practice) measurable, and (b) the amount of language controlled by an individual conferred selective advantage on it. In this model, the language faculty is seen as adaptive, favoured by natural selection, while the critical period for language acquisition itself is not an adaptation, but arises from the interplay of genetic factors influencing life-history characters in relation to language acquisition. The evolutionary model is implemented on a computer and simulations of populations evolving under various plausible, if idealized, conditions result in clear critical period effects, which end around puberty.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Rehabilitation factors contributing to implant benefit in children.

This study was performed to investigate factors contributing to auditory, speech, language, and reading outcomes after 4 to 6 years of multichannel cochlear implant use in children with prelingual deafness. The analysis controlled for the effects of child, family, and implant characteristics so that the educational factors most conducive to maximum implant benefit could be identified. We tested 136 children from across the United States and Canada. All were 8 or 9 years of age, had an onset of deafness before 3 years of age, underwent implantation by 5 years of age, and resided in a monolingual English-speaking home environment. Characteristics of the child and the family (primarily nonverbal IQ) accounted for approximately 20% of the variance in outcome after implantation. An additional 24% was accounted for by implant characteristics and 12% by educational variables, particularly communication mode. Oral education appears to be an important educational choice for children who have undergone cochlear implantation before 5 years of age.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1996

Deaf students' recall of Spanish vocabulary under three testing conditions.

This investigation examined the effects of three training conditions on deaf students' recall of Spanish word meaning as measured by performance on a Spanish vocabulary test. The conditions were; a) repeated written productions, b) repeated fingerspelling, and c) repeated silent reading of selected Spanish words and their English equivalents. Subjects were 30 deaf undergraduate students enrolled in introductory Spanish courses at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. Researchers assigned 10 subjects to each of the 3 training groups. A 30 item pretest was administered to verify that the vocabulary was not known to the subjects. A posttest containing 25 items from the pretest was administered twice to the subjects. For short-term memory there were no statistically significant differences across the 3 conditions. For long-term memory scores under the repeated written condition were significantly higher than scores under fingerspelling and silent reading conditions. The use of a study strategy incorporating writing may enhance the learning of Spanish vocabulary by deaf college students. The strategy could also be applied to other foreign languages and a range of academic subjects for deaf students.

Deafness↗
PubMed1995

Conversation at home: a case study of a young deaf child's communication experiences in a family in which all others can hear.

In the past, much research on deaf children's language development has been conducted in schools and clinical settings to examine children's achievement of standard English or to study the effectiveness of mode of communication. The purpose of this study was to examine a deaf child's pragmatic development, her abilities as a language user in the naturally occurring situations of her everyday life at home. Observations, videotaping, and interviews were used to collect descriptive data of the child's conversation experiences with hearing family members. Findings reveal that deafness has had an impact on the family's beliefs and communication practices. Data show the child to be a competent communicator as she uses language appropriately for a variety of purposes, demonstrates her knowledge of the structural features of conversation, and employs an array of communication strategies to achieve mutual understanding with family members.

Adolescent↗