Developing a theoretical framework for sign language assessment tests
Paul Dudis, Linguistics; Raylene Paludnevicine, Psychology; Peter Hauser, RIT.

The main goal of the current project is twofold: 1) to track the development of some specific spatial skills in the acquisition of ASL as a second language at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels both in deaf and hearing adult subjects and 2) to investigate whether there are any spatial cognitive abilities that might predict aptitude in the acquisition of the ASL spatial variables under investigation. This is a continuation of a previously GRI-funded study that focused only on hearing beginning learners. A comparison between hearing and deaf learners seems necessary in order to understand how the interplay of the learners' pre-existing spatial skills and their hearing/deaf status might affect their learning patterns. Additionally, a comparison between less and more advanced learners is necessary in order to get a more complete understanding of how skill development patterns over time. Following the same methodology we used in the first phase of the study, we will use cartoon stimuli to elicit ASL narratives and will film our subjects three times at different stages of their learning process. We will be recruiting subjects at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels and will conduct both longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses.

Perception of Phonological Structure in ASL
Gaurav Mathur, Linguistics

The study investigates how language experience and parameters of phonological structure like handshape, location, and movement affect perception in American Sign Language (ASL). To examine perception, the study uses two experimental techniques in psycholinguistics: primed lexical decision and primed phonological matching. In the first technique, participants judge whether the second sign of a pair is real or nonce. The question is whether the first sign facilitates performance if the two signs share a parameter in common. In the second, novel technique, participants judge whether two signs produced by different signers are the same. The question here is whether participants can detect when the two signs differ slightly in one of the parameters. To evaluate the effects of language experience, performance on these tasks are compared across both Deaf and hearing individuals in three groups: those exposed to ASL from birth; those exposed to ASL after five years of age; and those with no prior

ASL exposure. The significance of the study lies in addressing several priority areas: it identifies aspects of linguistic structure prominent in perception (Priority 8) and determines the degrees of signed language fluency with respect to perception, which can be applied toward language assessment

Guessing Games: The effect of morpho-graphemic organization on word attack skills
Diane Clark, Educational Foundations and Research

Deaf individuals' reading levels lags behind their hearing peers (Allen, 1986; Conrad, 1979) and this lag has not been reduced in the past 30 to 40 years (e.g., Marschark & Harris, 1996; Musselman, 2000). The reason for this lag is open to debate, with some researchers focusing on phonological awareness as the weak link (e.g., Colin, Magnan, Ecalle, & Leybaert, 2007; Luetke-Stahlman & Nielsen, 2003) while others find evidence that orthographic information and morphology appears to be important (Transler, Leybaert, & Gombert, 1999). Word identification is an important component within reading that permits moving from the printed form to the internal lexicon. Gonter Gaustad (2000) reviews the evidence of morphological sensitivity within this word identification process. The use of morphology facilitates word identification in two ways—through a direct link between orthographic strings and their corresponding lexical meaning and then through the ability to decode novel mulitmorphemic strings into their individual components (Gonter Gaustad). The current project focuses on these connections to determine if multimorphemic low frequency words provide internal mappings to their definitions.

Effects of Bilingualism on Word Order and Information packaging in ASL
Deborah Chen-Pichler, Linguistics

This project aims to study the development of information packaging by ASL monolingual and ASL/English bilingual children. Information packaging refers to the ways in which speakers organize old and new information during discourse with an interlocutor. Recent reports in the acquisition literature have demonstrated that Deaf children as young as 1;6-2;0 appear to make use of topic and focus structures. However, the extent to which these structures adhere to target-like discourse/pragmatic requirements is not clear. It is also not clear from these reports whether children accurately produce the nonmanual (prosodic) features or noncanonical word order that accompany such information structures in adult ASL. This study will collect both longitudinal and experimental data with the goal of uncovering the developmental patterns for topic and focus constructions, as well as their effects on word order and nonmanual prosody. In addition, inclusion of both mono- and bilingual signers will allow investigation of possible cross-modality transfer effects between English and ASL. Bilingualism across two modalities presents opportunities for a wider variety of potential transfer effects than traditional monomodal bilingualism on which current models of transfer are based, and can thus serve as a crucial test case for refining this aspect of linguistic theory.

Motivations and goals of owners, managers, and counselors of planned recreational (summer and weekend) programs for deaf and hard of hearing children.
Gina Oliva, Physical Education and Recreation

There are approximately 70 known summer camps for deaf and hard of hearing children and youth around the United States. In addition, weekend programs directed at mainstreamed deaf and hard of hearing youth are emerging around the United States as education and mental health professionals strive to provide the crucial social experiences that are frequently lacking in mainstream settings.

This study is the first to focus on this phenomenon and is now in its third year. Given the dearth of research on these programs, the focus is on very foundation of the program &mdash the administrators, the program staff and the actual activities offered. What are the motivations and goals of owners, managers, and counselors of summer and weekend programs for deaf and hard of hearing children? How are these motivations and goals reflected in staffing patterns (qualifications, training provided, expectations), actual activities, perception of ongoing challenges, and marketing efforts? To what extent do these patterns, activities and perceptions include sensitivity to and a special effort towards solitary and almost solitary children and youth?

This qualitative study will attempt to answer these and other questions, to provide rich description of the current state of affairs and promote further study of various elements of this phenomenon.

Investigating Interactive Interpreting
Cynthia Roy, Melanie Metzger, Interpretation

Our purpose is to investigate face-to-face interpreted encounters in medical, mental health, legal, educational, government and business settings from a discourse perspective. The assistance of interpreters is a necessary way for deaf and hard-of-hearing persons to overcome language barriers in the everyday routines of many public institutions. Most of these routines are accomplished by talking face-to-face, by having a conversation. How these conversations are accomplished through an interpreter has not been thoroughly investigated. We propose to video-record ten interpreted encounters and analyze them using discourse analysis methodology from the various approaches within linguistics. We will account for interpreter-mediated conversation as a mode of communication, about interpreters and their responsibilities, about what they do, and what others expect them to do in face-to-face, institutional encounters. If interpreting is to be acknowledged as a profession when it occurs in the everyday life of public institutions and organizations, and if we are to teach this professional endeavor and gain the confidence and respect of the public, we need to have well-founded and shared ideas about what interpreting in these settings is all about, what interpreters are good for, and about preferred standards to apply in various situations.