ArticleJournal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR2023
Learning a Sign Language Does Not Hinder Acquisition of a Spoken Language.
Article in Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 73 citations in OpenAlex.
- Psychological well-being and mental health risks in deaf and hard of hearing youth: a systematic review.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Early Communication Intervention for Deaf/Hard of Hearing Toddlers: A Randomized Clinical Trial.Pediatrics · 2025Trial
- Perceptions of Deaf education in the Deaf community.Journal of deaf studies and deaf education · 2026Article
- Impacts of hearing history, etiology, vestibular and balance function, and socioeconomic marginalization on developmental outcomes in children with cochlear implants.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- From early communication to bimodal vocabulary acquisition: A longitudinal study of hearing children with deaf mothers from infancy to school-age years.Bilingualism (Cambridge, England) · 2026Article
- Article
- Assessing academic anxiety in d/Deaf, DeafBlind, and hard of hearing individuals.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Navigating sign language learning: insights from hearing parents of deaf and hard-of-hearing children.Journal of deaf studies and deaf education · 2025Article
- Language and Cognitive Development in Bimodal Bilingual Deaf Children in Hearing Families: Three Case Studies.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Variability in Language and Literacy Outcomes Among Deaf Elementary Students in a National Sample.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Exploration of parental perspectives and involvement in therapeutic communication approaches for deaf and/or hard-of-hearing children at special schools in South Africa.Medical humanities · 2025Article
- Caregiver response types and children language outcomes in preschoolers with and without hearing loss in Aotearoa New Zealand.Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand · 2025Article
- The Radical Middle: Caregiver Beliefs About Language Access for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children.Journal of early hearing detection and intervention · 2025Article
- Language anxiety: understanding past research and new directions with d/Deaf, DeafBlind, and hard of hearing communities.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Review
- Neurocognitive outcomes in young adults with cochlear implants: The role of early language access and crossmodal plasticity.Hearing research · 2024Article
- An approach designed to fail deaf children and their parents and how to change it.Harm reduction journal · 2024Review
- Awake craniotomy with English and British sign language mapping in a patient with a left temporal glioblastoma reveals discordant speech-sign language maps.Acta neurochirurgica · 2024Article
- Deaf and Hearing American Sign Language-English Bilinguals: Typical Bilingual Language Development.Journal of deaf studies and deaf education · 2023Article
- Hearing Loss and Autism Spectrum Disorder.Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBPArticle
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
purposeThe purpose of this study is to determine whether and how learning American Sign Language (ASL) is associated with spoken English skills in a sample of ASL-English bilingual deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children.
methodThis cross-sectional study of vocabulary size included 56 DHH children between 8 and 60 months of age who were learning both ASL and spoken English and had hearing parents. English and ASL vocabulary were independently assessed via parent report checklists.
resultsASL vocabulary size positively correlated with spoken English vocabulary size. Spoken English vocabulary sizes in the ASL-English bilingual DHH children in the present sample were comparable to those in previous reports of monolingual DHH children who were learning only English. ASL-English bilingual DHH children had total vocabularies (combining ASL and English) that were equivalent to same-age hearing monolingual children. Children with large ASL vocabularies were more likely to have spoken English vocabularies in the average range based on norms for hearing monolingual children.
conclusionsContrary to predictions often cited in the literature, acquisition of sign language does not harm spoken vocabulary acquisition. This retrospective, correlational study cannot determine whether there is a causal relationship between sign language and spoken language vocabulary acquisition, but if a causal relationship exists, the evidence here suggests that the effect would be positive. Bilingual DHH children have age-expected vocabularies when considering the entirety of their language skills. We found no evidence to support recommendations that families with DHH children avoid learning sign language. Rather, our findings show that children with early ASL exposure can develop age-appropriate vocabulary skills in both ASL and spoken English.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.