Papers by Robert Hoffmeister
Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Nov 12, 2021
The current study contributes empirical data to our understanding of how knowledge of American Si... more The current study contributes empirical data to our understanding of how knowledge of American Sign Language (ASL) syntax aids reading print English for deaf children who are bilingual and bimodal in ASL and English print. The first analysis, a conceptual replication of Hoffmeister (2000), showed that performance on the American Sign Language Assessment Instrument correlated with the Sanford Achievement Test-Reading Comprehension (SAT-RC) and the Rhode Island Test of Language Structures (RITLS, Engen & Engen, 1983). The second analysis was a quantile regression using ASL assessments to predict English print abilities. Different ASL skills were important for English reading comprehension (SAT-RC) versus understanding English syntax (RITLS); the relationship between ASL skills and English print performance also varied for students at different English print ability levels. Strikingly, knowledge of ASL syntax was robustly correlated with knowledge of English syntax at all ability levels. Our findings provide novel and strong evidence for the impact of ASL on the development of English literacy.
Frontiers in Communication, Aug 3, 2022
How Deaf children should be taught to read has long been debated. Severely or profoundly Deaf chi... more How Deaf children should be taught to read has long been debated. Severely or profoundly Deaf children, who face challenges in acquiring language from its spoken forms, must learn to read a language they do not speak. We refer to this as learning a language via print. How children can learn language via print is not a topic regularly studied by educators, psychologists, or language acquisition theorists. Nonetheless, Deaf children can do this. We discuss how Deaf children can learn a written language via print by mapping print words and phrases to sign language sequences. However, established, time-tested curricula for using a signed language to teach the print forms of spoken languages do not exist. We describe general principles for approaching this task, how it di ers from acquiring a spoken language naturalistically, and empirical evidence that Deaf children's knowledge of a signed language facilitates and advances learning a printed language.
American Annals of the Deaf, 2021
Limited studies exist that connect using signed language with mathematics performance in deaf and... more Limited studies exist that connect using signed language with mathematics performance in deaf and hard of hearing children. Here we examine 257 participants and compare their results on the NWEA MAP to their results on an assessment of ASL skills. We found that better ASL skills tended to result in better MAP performance. These results are moderated by factors such as age, gender, parental hearing status, and learning disability identification.
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 2018
Purpose This article examines whether syntactic and vocabulary abilities in American Sign Languag... more Purpose This article examines whether syntactic and vocabulary abilities in American Sign Language (ASL) facilitate 6 categories of language-based analogical reasoning. Method Data for this study were collected from 267 deaf participants, aged 7;6 (years;months) to 18;5. The data were collected from an ongoing study initially funded by the U.S. Institute of Education Sciences in 2010. The participants were given assessments of ASL vocabulary and syntax knowledge and a task of language-based analogies presented in ASL. The data were analyzed using mixed-effects linear modeling to first see how language-based analogical reasoning developed in deaf children and then to see how ASL knowledge influenced this developmental trajectory. Results Signing deaf children were shown to demonstrate language-based reasoning abilities in ASL consistent with both chronological age and home language environment. Notably, when ASL vocabulary and syntax abilities were statistically taken into account, t...
Journal of deaf studies and deaf education, Jan 15, 2018
In recent years, normed signed language assessments have become a useful tool for researchers, pr... more In recent years, normed signed language assessments have become a useful tool for researchers, practitioners, and advocates. Nevertheless, there are limitations in their application, particularly for the diagnosis of language disorders, and learning disabilities. Here, we discuss some of the available normed, signed language assessments and some of their limitations. We have also provided information related to practices that should lead to improvement in the quality of signed language assessments.
Oxford Scholarship Online, 2017
Limited choices exist for assessing the signed language development of deaf and hard of hearing c... more Limited choices exist for assessing the signed language development of deaf and hard of hearing children. Over the past 30 years, the American Sign Language Assessment Instrument (ASLAI) has been one of the top choices for norm-referenced assessment of deaf and hard of hearing children who use American Sign Language. Signed language assessments can also be used to evaluate the effects of a phenomenon known as language deprivation, which tends to affect deaf children. They can also measure the effects of impoverished and idiosyncratic nonstandard signs and grammar used by educators of the deaf and professionals who serve the Deaf community. This chapter discusses what was learned while developing the ASLAI and provides guidelines for educators and researchers of the deaf who seek to develop their own signed language assessments.
Language Learning, 2017
Factors influencing native and nonnative signers’ syntactic judgment ability in American Sign Lan... more Factors influencing native and nonnative signers’ syntactic judgment ability in American Sign Language (ASL) were explored for 421 deaf students aged 7;6–18;5. Predictors for syntactic knowledge were chronological age, age of entering a school for the deaf, gender, and additional learning disabilities. Mixed‐effects linear modeling analysis revealed main effects of each predictor and an interaction between signing status and learning disability. The native signers showed typical syntactic development that varied by chronological age, gender, additional learning disabilities, and age of entering a deaf school. In contrast, the syntactic development of nonnative signers was more variable. It was less tightly related to chronological age and more strongly influenced by the age at which they had entered the school where assessment occurred, which was highly related to length of exposure to a sign language.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2016
Failing to acquire language in early childhood because of language deprivation is a rare and exce... more Failing to acquire language in early childhood because of language deprivation is a rare and exceptional event, except in one population. Deaf children who grow up without access to indirect language through listening, speech-reading, or sign language experience language deprivation. Studies of Deaf adults have revealed that late acquisition of sign language is associated with lasting deficits. However, much remains unknown about language deprivation in Deaf children, allowing myths and misunderstandings regarding sign language to flourish. To fill this gap, we examined signing ability in a large naturalistic sample of Deaf children attending schools for the Deaf where American Sign Language (ASL) is used by peers and teachers. Ability in ASL was measured using a syntactic judgment test and language-based analogical reasoning test, which are two sub-tests of the ASL Assessment Inventory. The influence of two age-related variables were examined: whether or not ASL was acquired from birth in the home from one or more Deaf parents, and the age of entry to the school for the Deaf. Note that for non-native signers, this latter variable is often the age of first systematic exposure to ASL. Both of these types of age-dependent language experiences influenced subsequent signing ability. Scores on the two tasks declined with increasing age of school entry. The influence of age of starting school was not linear. Test scores were generally lower for Deaf children who entered the school of assessment after the age of 12. The positive influence of signing from birth was found for students at all ages tested (7;6-18;5 years old) and for children of all age-of-entry groupings. Our results reflect a continuum of outcomes which show that experience with language is a continuous variable that is sensitive to maturational age.
Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility - ASSETS '15, 2015
In this paper, we introduce the American Sign Language STEM Concept Learning Resource (ASL CLeaR)... more In this paper, we introduce the American Sign Language STEM Concept Learning Resource (ASL CLeaR), an educational application demo. The ASL CLeaR addresses a need for quality ASL STEM resources by featuring expertly presented STEM content in ASL, and employing an ASL-based search function and a visuocentric search interface. This paper discusses the main objectives of the ASL CLeaR, describes the components of the application, and suggests future work that could lead to improved educational outcomes for deaf and hard of hearing students in STEM topics.
LSA Annual Meeting Extended Abstracts, 2013
Semantic and phonological knowledge of native signers of American Sign Language (ASL) in a synony... more Semantic and phonological knowledge of native signers of American Sign Language (ASL) in a synonym task
Language Learning, 2014
It is unknown if the developmental path of antonym knowledge in deaf children increases continuou... more It is unknown if the developmental path of antonym knowledge in deaf children increases continuously with age and correlates with reading comprehension, as it does in hearing children. In the current study we tested 564 students aged 4–18 on a receptive multiple‐choice American Sign Language (ASL) antonym test. A subgroup of 138 students aged 7–18 took the Stanford Achievement Test reading comprehension test. The results showed that antonym knowledge depended more strongly on age for deaf children with deaf parents than for deaf children with hearing parents. This indicates more developmentally typical acquisition for deaf children with deaf parents, consistent with early natural language exposure. Multiple regressions demonstrated that ASL antonym knowledge eliminated the advantage of deaf parents for reading. This establishes a language effect of ASL on reading comprehension in English.
The Companion to Language Assessment, 2013
This chapter presents an historical account of the progress in the development of measures for as... more This chapter presents an historical account of the progress in the development of measures for assessing first language abilities in American Sign Language (ASL). In the past sign language assessment efforts were limited as they were largely based on the translation of extant measures developed for assessing English abilities. In the past two decades, the growing understanding of the linguistic properties of ASL and other signed languages and of language assessment in general has paved the way for significant progress in developing assessments for ASL and other signed languages. In order to provide a complete picture of a child's language abilities and knowledge, it is necessary that assessments include both receptive and expressive components. Such components must take into consideration vocabulary knowledge (both its extent and depth) as well as phonological, morphological, semantic, and syntactic knowledge. Because ASL exists in the visual modality and does not have a written form, the optimal presentation mode of any ASL assessment instrument must be video based. It is important that the material used to carry out language assessment is in a recorded format such that the test taker is not subject to memory constraints that may compromise language performance. While this chapter focuses on assessments of ASL, many points about ASL assessment can and should be extrapolated to what we should think about for assessments of other signed languages. Furthermore, this chapter also emphasizes that it is important for the purpose of developing assessment to be cognizant of the modality difference between signed and spoken languages. Language takes advantage of the affordances given to it by its modality, but these differences disappear when one is attuned to the deeper levels of meaning. Developing signed language assessments based on known linguistic structures will allow us to gain the clearest picture of the language knowledge and abilities of Deaf children. Keywords: Assessment evaluation; First language acquisition; Sign language
Cognition, 2014
Only a minority of profoundly deaf children read at age-level. We contend this reflects cognitive... more Only a minority of profoundly deaf children read at age-level. We contend this reflects cognitive and linguistic impediments from lack of exposure to a natural language in early childhood, as well as the inherent difficulty of learning English only through the written modality. Yet some deaf children do acquire English via print. The current paper describes a theoretical model of how children could, in principle, acquire a language via reading and writing. The model describes stages of learning which represent successive, conceptual insights necessary for second/foreign language learning via print. Our model highlights the logical difficulties present when one cannot practice a language outside of reading/writing, such as the necessity of translating to a first language, the need for explicit instruction, and difficulty that many deaf children experience in understanding figurative language. Our model explains why learning to read is often a protracted process for deaf children and ...
Sign Language Studies, 2014
A receptive, multiple-choice test of ASL synonyms was administered to Deaf children in order to d... more A receptive, multiple-choice test of ASL synonyms was administered to Deaf children in order to determine both their vocabulary development and the metalinguistic skills necessary for them to identify synonyms. A total of 572 Deaf children who were 4;0-18;0 years of age were tested: 449 Deaf children of hearing parents (DCHP) and 123 Deaf children of Deaf parents (DCDP). The performance of both groups improved with age, with DCDP scoring higher than DCHP from 8-9 years old and up. An error analysis showed a decrease of phonological foil choices with increasing age in both groups. Learners in both groups relied more on semantic knowledge and less on phonological knowledge for this semantic task as they became older, which is the same pattern observed for typically developing hearing children acquiring a spoken language. This indicates that DCHP and
Discourse Processes, 1983
Plurality in signed languages may be expressed in several ways –including the insertion of a nume... more Plurality in signed languages may be expressed in several ways –including the insertion of a numeral or quantifier within a construction, by the reduplication of a sign, or the incorporation of a plural classifier (Fischer, 1973; Baker-Shenk & Cokely, 1980; Hoffmeister, 1984; and Pfau & Steinbach, 2006). Examining plurality, there are differences when we compare classifiers in a signed language to those classifiers that occur in spoken languages. Aside from the obvious difference in modality (spoken vs. signed), one of the most notable differences is the fact that while many spoken languages employ numeral classifiers to express plurality, signed languages express plurality through the use of “classificatory verbs of handling, motion and location” (Aikenvald, 2003; p.15). These verbs of handling, motion and location differ from numeral classifiers of spoken languages not only in their form but also in the fact that they may optionally occur with a numeral. This is in contrast to spo...
It is unknown if the developmental path of antonym knowledge in deaf children increases
continuou... more It is unknown if the developmental path of antonym knowledge in deaf children increases
continuously with age and correlates with reading comprehension, as it does in hearing children.
Using a receptive multiple-choice American Sign Language (ASL) antonym test, antonym
knowledge depended more strongly on age for deaf children with deaf parents (DCDP) than for
deaf children with hearing parents (DCHP). This indicates more developmentally typical
acquisition for DCDP, consistent with early natural language exposure. Multiple regressions
demonstrated that ASL antonym knowledge eliminated the advantage of deaf parents for
reading. This establishes the strong language effect of ASL.
The Acquisition of
Synonyms in American Sign
Language (ASL) : Toward a
Further Understanding of
t... more The Acquisition of
Synonyms in American Sign
Language (ASL) : Toward a
Further Understanding of
the Components of ASL
Vocabulary Knowledge DCDP resemble hearing children in the strategies they use to identify
synonyms. In addition, DCHP follow the same developmental trajectory
as DCDP but are delayed, which is consistent with the less than
ideal levels of language input they receive.
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Papers by Robert Hoffmeister
continuously with age and correlates with reading comprehension, as it does in hearing children.
Using a receptive multiple-choice American Sign Language (ASL) antonym test, antonym
knowledge depended more strongly on age for deaf children with deaf parents (DCDP) than for
deaf children with hearing parents (DCHP). This indicates more developmentally typical
acquisition for DCDP, consistent with early natural language exposure. Multiple regressions
demonstrated that ASL antonym knowledge eliminated the advantage of deaf parents for
reading. This establishes the strong language effect of ASL.
Synonyms in American Sign
Language (ASL) : Toward a
Further Understanding of
the Components of ASL
Vocabulary Knowledge DCDP resemble hearing children in the strategies they use to identify
synonyms. In addition, DCHP follow the same developmental trajectory
as DCDP but are delayed, which is consistent with the less than
ideal levels of language input they receive.
continuously with age and correlates with reading comprehension, as it does in hearing children.
Using a receptive multiple-choice American Sign Language (ASL) antonym test, antonym
knowledge depended more strongly on age for deaf children with deaf parents (DCDP) than for
deaf children with hearing parents (DCHP). This indicates more developmentally typical
acquisition for DCDP, consistent with early natural language exposure. Multiple regressions
demonstrated that ASL antonym knowledge eliminated the advantage of deaf parents for
reading. This establishes the strong language effect of ASL.
Synonyms in American Sign
Language (ASL) : Toward a
Further Understanding of
the Components of ASL
Vocabulary Knowledge DCDP resemble hearing children in the strategies they use to identify
synonyms. In addition, DCHP follow the same developmental trajectory
as DCDP but are delayed, which is consistent with the less than
ideal levels of language input they receive.