Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA.
San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA.
Mem Cognit. 2023 Apr;51(3):509-525. doi: 10.3758/s13421-022-01330-1. Epub 2022 Jul 6.
Studies of deaf and hard-of-hearing (henceforth, deaf) children tend to make comparisons with typically hearing children for the purpose of either identifying deficits to be remediated or understanding the impact of auditory deprivation on visual or domain general processing. Here, we eschew these clinical and theoretical aims, seeking instead to understand factors that explain variability in cognitive function within deaf children. A total of 108 bilingual deaf children ages 7-13 years who use both English and American Sign Language (ASL) participated in a longitudinal study of executive function (EF) development. We report longitudinal data from a visual continuous performance task that measured sustained selective attention and response inhibition. Results show that the impact of deafness on these processes is negligible, but that language skills have a positive relationship with both: better English abilities were associated with better selective sustained attention, and better ASL abilities with better response inhibition. The relationship between sustained selective attention and English abilities may reflect the cognitive demands of spoken language acquisition for deaf children, whereas better ASL abilities may promote an "inner voice," associated with improved response inhibition. The current study cannot conclusively demonstrate causality or directionality of effects. However, these data highlight the importance of studies that focus on atypical individuals, for whom the relationships between language and cognition may be different from those observed in typically developing populations.
聋人和重听（以下简称聋）儿童的研究倾向于与典型听力儿童进行比较，目的是确定需要补救的缺陷或了解听觉剥夺对视觉或一般领域处理的影响。在这里，我们回避这些临床和理论目标，而是寻求理解解释聋童认知功能变异性的因素。共有 108 名使用英语和美国手语（ASL）的双语聋童，年龄在 7-13 岁之间，参加了一项关于执行功能（EF）发展的纵向研究。我们报告了一项视觉连续表现任务的纵向数据，该任务测量了持续选择性注意力和反应抑制。结果表明，聋对这些过程的影响可以忽略不计，但语言技能与两者都有正相关关系：更好的英语能力与更好的选择性持续注意力相关，更好的 ASL 能力与更好的反应抑制相关。持续选择性注意力与英语能力之间的关系可能反映了聋童口语习得的认知要求，而更好的 ASL 能力可能促进了“内在声音”，从而提高了反应抑制。目前的研究不能确定因果关系或影响的方向性。然而，这些数据强调了关注非典型个体的研究的重要性，对于这些个体，语言和认知之间的关系可能与在典型发展人群中观察到的关系不同。
