The language and communication abilities of a deaf child (15;9) acquiring American Sign Language (ASL) as his first-language after puberty were investigated. The participant had been exposed to ASL for approximately three years at the time of testing. Background information and data concerning the participant's language and communication skills were collected from his foster parents. Videotaped language samples were collected in conversational and narrative contexts using various elicitation devices. Data from the language samples were transcribed and analyzed with respect to the participant's lexical, morphological, syntactic, and pragmatic skills. Comparison of the results of these analyses to what is known about native language acquisition, homesign, and late first-language acquisition revealed both similarities and differences between the participant and members of each of these three groups. Contrary to previous claims of dissociations between lexical, morphological, syntactic, and pragmatic development by late first-language learners, the participant demonstrated relatively similar abilities across different areas of language and communication. The theoretical implications of these results, as well as clinical implications and directions for future research, are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.78365 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Gates, Andrea |
| Contributors | Mayberry, Rachel I. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (School of Communication Sciences and Disorders.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001974445, proquestno: AAIMQ88200, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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