Children's numeracy skills at school entry predict future educational attainment. Deaf and hard-of-hearing students are reported to underperform compared with typically hearing peers in mathematics. This study examined the impact of language experience on cardinal principle (CP) knowledge and accuracy in generating large sets in 58 hearing and 120 deaf and hard-of-hearing children ages 3.1-7.6 years who were learning spoken English and/or American Sign Language (ASL). The 178 children represented diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds; 77 were assigned male at birth. Logistic regression models showed that chronological age and age of access to language significantly predicted CP knowledge; however, age of language access was no longer significant after including highest count as a predictor. Logistic regressions further revealed that age and the timing of children's access to language (early/later)-but not language modality or socioeconomic status-significantly predicted accuracy in generating large sets. After including the age at which children began receiving greater access to language, both highest count and language access, along with age, significantly predicted performance. These findings show that both ASL and spoken English support number knowledge development and CP acquisition and that early exposure to accessible language is critical to promoting equity in mathematics outcomes.

Recent research has found that the cumulative amount of time a child has had auditory access to language accounts for differences in early numerical abilities between oral Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) and hearing preschoolers. We replicate and extend these findings by exploring the role of language ability and salience of numerical information with a larger sample (N = 89; 43 female; majority White) of 3- 6-year-old oral DHH and hearing children. We captured number knowledge, numerical discrimination, salience of numerical information, and parent-reports of vocabulary and language experience. Oral DHH children underperformed on the numerical tasks and vocabulary, however, disparities in numerical measures disappeared when controlling for differences in language experience. The salience of numerical information was similar for both groups.

This paper offers an overview of a large study of language and cognitive development in deaf and hard of hearing children. Specifically, we investigated how acquiring a signed or spoken language (language modality) and when a child's access to language begins (i.e., at birth or later in development) influence cognitive development. We conducted in-person behavioral assessments with 404 children 3–10 years old (280 deaf and hard of hearing; 124 typically hearing). The tasks measured a range of abilities along a continuum of how strongly they depend on language input, such as general vocabulary and number words (strongly dependent) vs. skills such as tracking sets of two to three objects and standardized ‘nonverbal' picture-similarity tasks (relatively independent of language). Overall, the timing of children's access to language predicted more variability in their performance than language modality. These findings help refine our theories about how language influences development and suggest how a STEAM pedagogical approach may ameliorate the impacts of later access to language. These results underscore children's need for language early in development. That is, deaf and hard of hearing children must receive fully accessible language input as early as possible through sign language, accompanied by hearing technology aimed at improving access to spoken language, if desired.

Most deaf and hard-of-hearing children are born to hearing parents, often delaying exposure to their first language. This negatively influences development of not only language, but also many other aspects of cognition, including exact representations of large quantities. The core knowledge view of numeracy predicts that delays in language exposure should not affect nonverbal representations of small quantities (1-3). This study is the first to investigate effects of language modality (spoken vs. signed) and timing of language experience (early, from birth vs. later) on the representation of small quantities of objects. We adapted the "Mr. Elephant" task (Shusterman et al., 2017) and examined whether children (age 3 to 7 years) succeeded on trials involving quantities 2 and 3. A logistic regression found that Timing and Socioeconomic Status significantly predicted Mr. Elephant performance, while Modality and Age did not. Early-exposed children were more likely to succeed on the task than Later-exposed children. For an exploratory follow-up, two measures of language were added into the analysis: Highest Count, which records children's recitation of the count list, and Give-a-Number ('Give-N'), which assesses children's understanding of the cardinal principle (CP). This logistic regression found that Timing and Give-N performance significantly and independently predicted Mr. Elephant performance, but Socioeconomic Status and Highest Count did not. Children who were CP-knowers were more likely to succeed on Mr. Elephant than non-CP-knowers. These results suggest that the representation of small quantity representations is associated with the timing of children's language exposure and their knowledge of the cardinal principle.

Perceptual cues in instructional materials may help students notice structures of math notation and improve problem-solving performance. The present study examined whether and how congruent perceptual cues (spacing and color) affected students' performance on order-of-operations problems and considered potential moderators. The analysis included 482 middle-school students, randomly assigned to one of three conditions: spacing (3 − 9 + 4×7), color (“4 × 7” highlighted in 3 − 9 + 4 × 7), or no cues. Students participated via an online platform during a 45-min block in their classrooms. Beyond examining performance during the experiment and posttest, we considered moderators of prior order-of-operations knowledge, perception of equivalence, and math anxiety. Neither congruent spacing nor congruent color affected performance on the experimental items or posttest. However, students with higher perception of equivalence benefited more from congruent spacing cues than students with lower perception of equivalence. Students with higher math anxiety struggled more during the experiment, but there was no moderation. Future work should include specific intervention scaffolding and feedback alongside the presentation of cues, as well as delve into variations in perceptual structures at the individual and problem levels to fully understand effects of perceptual cues on math problem-solving performance.

Abstract This article presents an exploration of the usage and distribution of the 1-handshape classifier (Cl-1) and the 2-handshape classifier (Cl-2), both diachronically and synchronically, tracking classifier development in a detailed dataset of Nicaraguan individual homesigners and two groups of Nicaraguan Sign Language signers. Both phonological and semantic dimensions are analyzed in service of discerning what factors impact the choice and phonological production of the relevant classifiers. Phonologically we find that the distribution of Cl-1 and Cl-2 is quite different than would be expected were articulatory complexity the main motivating factor. We suggest also that this dataset is a microcosm of the system as a whole, and patterns of 1-handed and 2-handed signs vary across groups. Semantically, we find that (1) classifier use is more semantically restricted among individual homesigners. (2) As classifiers become more semantically frequent and flexible in the earliest cohort of Nicaraguan signers, constraints on production emerge. (3) Vertical transmission of those classifiers and constraints leads to more flexible usage in subsequent cohorts.

Abstract: In this article, we compare two languages that are approximately fifty years old—Central Taurus Sign Language (CTSL) and Lengua de Señas Nicaragüense (LSN)—by employing two studies. Study 1 analyzes emerging phonology , specifically the size and complexity of the handshape inventories of the two languages, and Study 2 analyzes emerging information packaging in complex predicates, specifically for agency and number. In both studies, we compare data across three groups of CTSL signers and three groups of Nicaraguan signers. The results of both studies show variation across languages and cohorts; the patterns of variation, we argue, are grounded in factors of community size, contact among signers, and the sociocultural makeup of the community, factors that are used in large typological studies on spoken languages. The main findings are as follows: (1) The patterns observed across the Nicaraguan groups display more variation than those across the CTSL groups and (2) The variation among Nicaraguan groups demonstrate that homesigns exhibit a wide range of forms that were pared down in the first decade of LSN and developed and reorganized during LSN's second decade. We suggest that a more precise and nuanced manner of describing sign language communities that considers the following is needed: (1) the degree to which the cultural practices are shared; (2) the size of the deaf community; (3) the ratio of deaf signers to hearing L2 signers; and (4) the rate that new child learners are added. We also call for more comparative work on new sign languages that will assist in determining the effects and interactions of factors of interest to researchers of signed and spoken languages.

Studies of homesigns have shed light on the human capacity for language and on the challenging problem of language acquisition. The study of homesign has evolved from a perspective grounded in gesture studies and child development to include sign language linguistics and the role of homesigns in language emergence at the community level. One overarching finding is that homesigns more closely resemble sign languages used by linguistic communities than they resemble the gestures produced by hearing people along with spoken language. Homesigns may not exhibit all of the linguistic properties of community languages, but the properties they do exhibit are language properties, and for the people who use them, homesigns are their language. Further, the linguistic structures in homesigns are innovated by the deaf people who use them and are imperfectly learned by their hearing communication partners. I close with a call to action: We cannot celebrate discoveries about the mind made possible by studies of homesigns and emerging languages while ignoring the pervasiveness of language deprivation among deaf people, and the relative lack of deaf participation in science, even in studies of sign languages. While the scientific community learns much from studying homesigns and sign languages, we also have a responsibility to work toward ensuring that every deaf person has access to language, communication, and education.

One structural dimension that varies across languages is the simultaneous or sequential expression of meaning. Complex predicates can layer meanings together simultaneously in a single -verb predicate (SVP) or distribute them sequentially in a multiple -verb predicate (MVP). We ask whether typological variability in this dimension might be a consequence of systematic patterns of diachronic change. We examine the distribution of markers of agency and number within the verb phrase (the predicate) in the earliest stages of a young, emerging sign language in Nicaragua, Lengua de Se & ntilde;as Nicarag & uuml;ense (LSN), beginning with homesign systems like those from which LSN originated, and progressing through two decades of transmission to new learners. We find that: (i) LSN2 signers are more likely to produce MVPs than homesigners or LSN1 signers; (ii) in the MVPs they do produce, homesigners and LSN1 signers are more likely to produce predicates that mark both agency and number simultaneously on at least one of the verbs; LSN2 signers are just as likely to produce sequences with verbs that mark agency and number in sequentially separate verbs. We discuss how language acquisition, modality, and structure, as well as specific social factors associated with each of the groups, play a role in driving these changes, and how, over time, these patterns of change might yield the diversity of forms observed across spoken and signed languages today.

Research has shown a link between the acquisition of numerical concepts and language, but exactly how linguistic input matters for numerical development remains unclear. Here, we examine both symbolic (number word knowledge) and non-symbolic (numerical discrimination) numerical abilities in a population in which access to language is limited early in development—oral deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) preschoolers born to hearing parents who do not know a sign language. The oral DHH children demonstrated lower numerical discrimination skills, verbal number knowledge, conceptual understanding of the word “more”, and vocabulary relative to their hearing peers. Importantly, however, analyses revealed that group differences in the numerical tasks, but not vocabulary, disappeared when differences in the amount of time children had had auditory access to spoken language input via hearing technology were taken into account. Results offer insights regarding the role language plays in emerging number concepts. © 2023, The Author(s).