University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA.
Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch. 2011 Oct;42(4):423-43. doi: 10.1044/0161-1461(2011/10-0071). Epub 2011 Aug 15.
This study focused on whether developmental communication disorders exist in American Sign Language (ASL) and how they might be characterized. ASL studies is an emerging field; educators and clinicians have minimal access to descriptions of communication disorders of the signed modality. Additionally, there are limited resources for assessing ASL acquisition. This article is designed to raise clinicians' awareness about developmental communication disorders in ASL and categorize types of atypicality that have been witnessed.
We conducted 4 focus groups and one 1-on-1 interview with a total of 22 adults (7 Deaf, 15 hearing) who work at bilingual-bicultural (ASL-English) schools for the Deaf. Experiences of these educators and language professionals were analyzed qualitatively using a combination of grounded theory (Charmaz, 2001; Strauss & Corbin, 1998) and a modified van Kaam approach (Moustakas, 1994).
Participants confirmed observations of children with suspected communication disorders and considered the prevalence, possible etiologies, and psychosocial aspects of such disorders in ASL. They reported frustration at the lack of diagnostic tools for reliable identification and intervention strategies to be used in educational settings.
This work provides us with practitioner accounts proving that developmental communication disorders do exist in ASL. Future reports will describe primary data from signers with atypical language attributes.
本研究关注美国手语（ASL）中是否存在发育性沟通障碍，以及这些障碍可能具有哪些特征。ASL 研究是一个新兴领域；教育工作者和临床医生几乎无法了解手语模态的沟通障碍的描述。此外，用于评估 ASL 习得的资源有限。本文旨在提高临床医生对 ASL 发育性沟通障碍的认识，并对已观察到的异常类型进行分类。
我们与 22 名成人（7 名聋人，15 名听力正常）进行了 4 个焦点小组和 1 个一对一访谈，他们在聋人双语双文化（ASL-English）学校工作。这些教育工作者和语言专业人员的经验使用扎根理论（Charmaz，2001；Strauss 和 Corbin，1998）和修改后的 van Kaam 方法（Moustakas，1994）的组合进行了定性分析。
参与者证实了对疑似沟通障碍儿童的观察，并考虑了 ASL 中此类障碍的流行率、可能的病因和心理社会方面。他们报告说，缺乏可靠识别和在教育环境中使用的干预策略的诊断工具感到沮丧。
这项工作为我们提供了从业者的报告，证明发育性沟通障碍确实存在于 ASL 中。未来的报告将描述具有异常语言特征的手语者的原始数据。
