New paper! Deaf children dynamically allocate visual attention to learn novel words in American Sign Language

Our new paper, “Flexible fast-mapping: Deaf children dynamically allocate visual attention to learn novel words in American Sign Language” was published in the journal Developmental Science.

Children learning words need to connect “word to wold,” meaning they need to make a connection between the words in their input and the objects and events in their world. For children learning ASL, where both language input and objects are perceived through vision, word learning can only happen if children look in the right place at the right time.

In this study, deaf children learning ASL looked at a computer screen where they saw two novel objects and a video of a person introducing a new sign for the objects. We monitored their gaze using an eye-tracking camera to see how children shifted their gaze between the objects and the video that presented them with the new ASL sign. We found that they are remarkably good at deciding when and where to shift their gaze to learn new ASL signs. And they can do this before their second birthday if they are exposed to language early.

Find the full article here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/desc.13166