Erin Elizabeth Campbell

Part of language development necessarily involves connecting sensory inputwith linguistic units. We asked whether visual input in particular was differ-entially relevant for learning words and building grammar. While substan-tial prior work (e.g. Bates & Goodman, 1997) confirms a tight link betweengrammar and the lexicon, there could in principle be different degrees ofreliance on a visual referential world across them. To begin to tackle thislarge question, we examined the productive morphosyntax skills of youngblind children (N=28, 14-55mo.), each matched to a sighted child of thesame productive vocabulary size, based on a parent-reported vocabulary andearly grammar checklist. We asked whether blind children’s morphosyntacticskills were similar, advanced, or delayed relative to sighted vocabulary-size-matched peers. We found no differences between blind and sighted childrenacross 6 morphosyntax measures. Blind children did show a delay in produc-tive morphosyntax skills relative to sighted children, and this delay (roughly9 months) was statistically longer than the delay reported for spoken vo-cabulary in this same group (Campbell, Casillas, & Bergelson, 2024). Wealso found that both age and vocabulary strongly predicted morphosyntaxscores for sighted children, but only vocabulary size (and not age) robustlypredicted morphosyntax for blind children. These results extend seminalresearch in early language development in blind and sighted children (e.g.Landau & Gleitman, 1985), highlighting close vocabulary to syntax links inearly childhood across groups, and supporting the idea that vision does notcontribute separably to either facet of language development.

Purpose: Hearing caregivers of deaf children must make time-sensitive decisions about which language(s) to use to support their children’s development. Caregivers often receive advice on this decision from multiple sources (including teachers, speech-language pathologists, pediatricians, inter alia), but the content of this advice has not been well characterized.Methods: This study examined the prevalence, sources, effects, and experiences of clinical advice about sign language. We conducted a survey of hearing caregivers of deaf or hard-of-hearing children (N=118), who were recruited from a sign language learning app. We used a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative survey analyses with qualitative analyses of caregivers' open-ended responses about their experiences.Results: Roughly 40% of caregivers reported receiving advice from a professional discouraging sign language, and many caregivers encountered advice they saw as conflicting, biased, or outdated. Caregivers who received anti-sign advice held more negative attitudes toward signing than those given positive advice. Many caregivers expressed regret regarding their family’s language decisions, wishing that their children had more sign language exposure earlier.Conclusions: Even though such anti-sign advice is not well supported by existing evidence, many parents had received recommendations discouraging sign language. These findings underscore the need for more evidence-based guidance from educators and clinicians for families navigating early communication decisions for deaf children.

This study compared spoken language input to deaf/hard of hearing (DHH) children with cochlear implants, and two sets of hearing controls: age and hearing-age matches. Using daylong audio-recordings from 6-32 month-olds (n=16/group), we examined whether systemic variation in thirteen language input metrics predicted children’s emerging language outcomes. Language input to the DHH group contained shorter sentences and more auditory words (e.g., “loud”) than input to hearing-age-matches, and slightly fewer adult words than input to age-matches. Despite the modest input differences, DHH children produced fewer mature vocalizations than age-matched peers; their vocalizations also increased less robustly with age. Regression models indicated that age, hearing status, noise, input quantity, overlapping speech, and input MLU collectively predicted >50% of variance in children’s vocal maturity. These results suggest differences in children’s access to language input play a larger role than the relatively small systematic input differences across DHH and hearing children.

Many U.S. policies inspired by the Science of Reading rest on two assumptions: (1) skilled reading always involves automatic mapping between written words and speech sounds, and (2) all children benefit from systematic instruction of phonological awareness and phonics. These assumptions are not wholly accurate, that they do not consider scientific evidence from deaf readers, and that policies based on these assumptions may be harmful to deaf children. First, skilled reading does not always rely on phonology. Evidence shows that deaf readers can read effectively without using spoken language phonology and that phonological processing can be unrelated to reading skill in this group. Second, a fundamental issue in deaf education is prioritizing speech and hearing over language development, academics, cognition, and socio-emotional well-being. This unhealthy imbalance persists despite the mounting evidence that we cannot ensure deaf children acquire spoken language. Policies mandating speech-based reading instruction for all children overlook how deaf readers develop literacy, and reinforce the overemphasis on speech, which creates the conditions for language deprivation. We caution against a one-size-fits-all approach to reading instruction and emphasize the need for differentiated instruction that respects the diverse ways beginning readers, including deaf learners, acquire literacy.

How do sensory experiences shape the words we learn first? Most studies of language have focused on hearing children learning spoken languages, making it challenging to know how sound and language modality might contribute to language learning. This study investigates how perceptual and semantic features influence early vocabulary acquisition in deaf children learning American Sign Language and hearing children learning spoken English. Using vocabulary data from parent-report inventories, we analyzed 214 nouns common to both languages to compare the types of meanings associated with earlier Age of Acquisition. Results revealed that while children in both groups were earlier to acquire words that were more strongly related to the senses, the specific types of sensory meaning varied by language modality. Hearing children learned words with sound-related features earlier than other words, while deaf children learned words with visual and touch-related features earlier. This suggests that the easiest words to learn are words with meanings that children can experience first-hand, which varies based on children’s own sensory access and experience. Studying the diverse ways children acquire language, in this case deaf children, is key to developing language learning theories that reflect all learners.

Blind infants cannot acquire information about the world using vision, which may make it more difficult to connect words they hear to referents that, for sighted infants, are readily visually available. We ask whether, in light of this, caregivers talk differently to blind vs. sighted infants. We consider two qualitative dimensions of speech input: the types of utterances it contains, and the content of those utterances. Using daylong LENA audio-recordings, we captured naturalistic speech in the homes of blind and sighted infants (n=15 each, aged 6-30 months).We systematically subsampled and transcribed 40 minutes per child; these transcripts were then analyzed across various dimensions tapping e.g. syntactic structure, informativity, and conversational features. Overall, we found highly similar distributions of utterance types and content across the speech heard by the children in each group.Fine-grained analysis revealed blind children's language environments contained slightly but consistently more declaratives compared to sighted peers, with other categories showing no differences across the board. These findings show that parents in both groups talk to their children in similarly informative ways, challenging claims that blind infants hear more directives and commands.More broadly, this work expands on prior research suggesting that stark differences in caretaker input are unlikely to explain blind and sighted infants' early language development.

The view that words are arbitrary is a foundational assumption about language, used to set human languages apart from nonhuman communication. We present here a study of the alignment between the semantic and phonological structure (systematicity) of American Sign Language (ASL), and for comparison, two spoken languages—English and Spanish. Across all three languages, words that are semantically related are more likely to be phonologically related, highlighting systematic alignment between word form and word meaning. Critically, there is a significant effect of iconicity (a perceived physical resemblance between word form and word meaning) on this alignment: words are most likely to be phonologically related when they are semantically related and iconic. This phenomenon is particularly widespread in ASL: half of the signs in the ASL lexicon are iconically related to other signs, i.e., there is a nonarbitrary relationship between form and meaning that is shared across signs. Taken together, the results reveal that iconicity can act as a driving force behind the alignment between the semantic and phonological structure of spoken and signed languages, but languages may differ in the extent that iconicity structures the lexicon. Theories of language must account for iconicity as a possible organizing principle of the lexicon.

We investigate the roles of linguistic and sensory experience in the early-produced visual, auditory, and abstract words of congenitally-blind toddlers, deaf toddlers, and typically-sighted/hearing peers. We also assess the role of language access by comparing early word production in children learning English or American Sign Language (ASL) from birth, versus at a delay. Using parental report data on child word production from the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory, we found evidence that while children produced words referring to imperceptible referents before age 2, such words were less likely to be produced relative to words with perceptible referents. For instance, blind (vs. sighted) children said fewer highly visual words like “blue” or “see”; deaf signing (vs. hearing) children produced fewer auditory signs like hear. Additionally, in spoken English and ASL, children who received delayed language access were less likely to produce words overall. These results demonstrate and begin to quantify how linguistic and sensory access may influence which words young children produce.

What is vision's role in driving early word production? To answer this, we assessed parent‐report vocabulary questionnaires administered to congenitally blind children (N = 40, Mean age = 24 months [R: 7–57 months]) and compared the size and contents of their productive vocabulary to those of a large normative sample of sighted children (N = 6574). We found that on average, blind children showed a roughly half‐year vocabulary delay relative to sighted children, amid considerable variability. However, the content of blind and sighted children's vocabulary was statistically indistinguishable in word length, part of speech, semantic category, concreteness, interactiveness, and perceptual modality. At a finer‐grained level, we also found that words’ perceptual properties intersect with children's perceptual abilities. Our findings suggest that while an absence of visual input may initially make vocabulary development more difficult, the content of the early productive vocabulary is largely resilient to differences in perceptual access.Research Highlights: Infants and toddlers born blind (with no other diagnoses) show a 7.5 month productive vocabulary delay on average, with wide variability. Across the studied age range (7–57 months), vocabulary delays widened with age. Blind and sighted children's early vocabularies contain similar distributions of word lengths, parts of speech, semantic categories, and perceptual modalities. Blind children (but not sighted children) were more likely to say visual words which could also be experienced through other senses.

This study investigated relationships among home reading practices, shared book reading (SBR) behaviors, and child literacy outcomes in young children with cochlear implants in Baltimore, Maryland. Parents ( N=18) completed a home reading questionnaire and recorded themselves reading books with their children at home. Shared book reading sessions were coded for interactive reading behaviors. Children’s early language skills and literacy skills were also assessed. We explored variability in these behaviors with regard to demographic characteristics and type of book; these exploratory analyses revealed that parents used more literacy teaching techniques when reading the wordless picture book and that parent interaction and engagement and literacy teaching techniques were more frequent with younger children than with older children. While many families frequently used interactive reading behaviors, our analysis did not find significant relationships between the parent behaviors and children’s literacy scores. However, there was an interaction between the amount of reading and cochlear implant experience such that more cochlear implant experience was associated with better reading outcomes only for the group of children who received more reading time. In a sample of young children with cochlear implants, reading time, cochlear implant experience, and child language skills were better predictors of reading outcomes than parents’ frequency of SBR behaviors alone.