Later age of entry to a signing school for the Deaf is associated with lower ASL syntactic judgment and analogical reasoning scores, with a marked decline for entry after age 12¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 2 studies · 2 associational r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2016 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Adding age at date of entry significantly improved model fit for both syntactic judgment and analogical reasoning tasks. → Henner J 2016 q3 i? Children entering the school of assessment after age 12 showed an especially drastic decrease in test scores (beta −0.13). → Henner J 2016 (2)

Evidence¶

Henner J 2016¶

Henner J, Caldwell-Harris CL, Novogrodsky R and Hoffmeister R (2016) American Sign Language Syntax and Analogical Reasoning Skills Are Influenced by Early Acquisition and Age of Entry to Signing Schools for the Deaf. Front. Psychol. 7:1982. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01982

q3 · i? · associational · r2

Mixed linear effects modeling of ASLAI scores from 688 Deaf students showed that adding age at date of entry improved fit for syntactic judgment [χ2(5)= 33.95, p < 0.001] and analogies [χ2(5)= 30.65, p < 0.001].

"Adding age at date of entry did improve the model fit for both syntactic judgment [ χ2(5)= 33.95, p < 0.001], and language based analogies [χ2(5)= 30.65, p < 0.001]."

Henner J 2016 (2)¶

Henner J, Caldwell-Harris CL, Novogrodsky R and Hoffmeister R (2016) American Sign Language Syntax and Analogical Reasoning Skills Are Influenced by Early Acquisition and Age of Entry to Signing Schools for the Deaf. Front. Psychol. 7:1982. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01982

q3 · i? · associational · r2

In the grouped-entry regression (Table 3), the beta weight for the 13–18 entry group was −0.13 on both tasks, which the authors describe as an especially drastic decrease for entry after age 12.

"The decrease in test scores for those entering the school for the Deaf after age 12 was especially drastic, as can be seen by the relatively large beta weights of−0.13."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• The advantage of signing from birth holds for Deaf learners of all ages tested and all age-of-entry groupings — related
• Non-native signers entering a signing school before age 6 had better ASL abilities than those entering later, but did not equal native signers — related
• Native signers (children of at least one Deaf parent) outperform non-native signers on ASL syntactic judgment and analogical reasoning tasks — related
• The age of learning-rate decline is similar for easy and difficult syntactic items — related
• Grammar-learning ability is preserved until about age 17.4 and then declines steadily, per the best-fitting ELSD model — related