On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 21:31:07 -0400, "Christopher D. Green" wrote: > The latest installment in the psycho-BS dept. > http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060727/lf_nm/life_babysign_dc
I may be a little dense but could you please be more specific about the "psycho-BS" aspects of the article? Though one could find fault with the Yahoo article, I thought it was pretty well established that infants exposed to American Sign Language (ASL) were were able to produce signs at an earlier age (roughly at 8 months but some can do so earlier) than spoken words (which appear around 12 months) . I believe Prinz and Prinz (1979) showed this in a case study and subsequent work, such as that by Bonvillian, Orlanskay, and Novack (1983), replicated the result with larger samples of children. After the Freudian Iceberg discussion I am loathe to use a secondary source as support but I'd like to point to the David Carroll's "Psychology of Language" (4th Ed), Chap 10, pp267-270 which compares the similarities and differences in the acquisition of sign and spoken language and the research that he references there. Quoting Carroll: "the primary difference is that infants acquire their first signs 2 to 3 months earlier than infants typically acquire their first words". Perhaps some parents find it useful to have a clearer idea of what their 8-11 month old is trying to communicate, even if it is in sign? -Mike Palij New York University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Prinz, P.M. & Prinz, E.A. (1979) Simultaneous acquisition of ASL and spoken English (in a hearing child of a deaf mother and a hearing father): Phase 1: Early Lexical development. _Sign Lanugage Studies, 25,_ 283-296. Bonvillian, J.D., Orlansky, M.D., & Novack, L.L. (1983). Developmental milestones: Sign language acquisition and motor development. _Child Development, 54,_ 1435-1445. --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
