Thursday, November 21, 2024 11/21/2024

Development of Gaze Control for Integration of Language and Visual Information in Deaf Children

Award Number: R01DC015272
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DEAFNESS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION DISORDERS
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

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Project Summary / Abstract Children learn words by connecting the language input they perceive to the objects and events in the world around them. While hearing children perceive auditory linguistic input while simultaneously looking at objects, deaf children learning sign language perceive both linguistic input and objects visually. Therefore, deaf children must learn to strategically and swiftly allocate their visual attention to map language onto its referents. This learning process is complicated by the fact that deaf children frequently have incomplete access to language: despite gains in technology and interventions, spoken language is generally not fully accessible to deaf children, and most deaf children are born to hearing parents who lack expertise in sign language. Together, these factors place young deaf children at risk for significant delay in development of a full first language, which has cascading consequences on later language, literacy, and academic outcomes. Thus it is critical to identify how input and interactions with young deaf children can optimally support early language development. The proposed project investigates word learning in deaf children learning American Sign Language (ASL), a significant and growing subset of the deaf population. Word learning is a critical component of language acquisition that enables children to map object and event labels with the surrounding world. The specific aims of this proposal are to 1) define the temporal alignment of parent input and children’s attention that supports word learning in deaf children; 2) identify the role of children’s dynamically shifting visual attention in word learning; and 3) demonstrate how linguistic and referential cues support word learning. This project uses a combination of naturalistic observations of parent-child interaction and behavioral and eye-tracking experiments in which the timing of input and the combination of input cues are manipulated to determine which contexts are most supportive of word learning in ASL. This project has broad theoretical implications. Current accounts of joint attention are based almost entirely on spoken language interactions, but language input and attention must be organized and timed differently when both language and attention are perceived in a single modality. The proposed project will lead to an expanded, unified theoretical account of joint attention that encompass word learning across modalities. This project also has direct translational implications for parents, early intervention professionals, and teachers of deaf children. First, the proposed work seeks to identify developmental benchmarks in children’s visual attention that support word learning, and these benchmarks can serve diagnostic tools in evaluation. Seond, understanding the optimal input timing and cues that support word learning can inform approaches to intervention for families with deaf children. The current project focuses on deaf children acquiring ASL, yet the findings will be broadly applicable, in that visual cues provide critical information for deaf children learning language across modalities.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $527,416 )
2024	2024	TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY	1 SILBER WAY	BOSTON	MA	02215	SUFFOLK	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	8	5/8/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$527,416
														Subtotal = $527,416

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $533,017 )
2023	2023	TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY	1 SILBER WAY	BOSTON	MA	02215	SUFFOLK	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	002	7	5/31/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$533,017
2023	2022	TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY	1 SILBER WAY	BOSTON	MA	02215	SUFFOLK	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	001	6	10/18/2022	COMPETING CONTINUATION	$24,422
2023	2020	TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY	1 SILBER WAY	BOSTON	MA	02215	SUFFOLK	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	5	10/18/2022	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	-$24,422
														Subtotal = $533,017

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $576,984 )
2022	2022	TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY	1 SILBER WAY	BOSTON	MA	02215	SUFFOLK	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	6	4/27/2022	COMPETING CONTINUATION	$576,984
														Subtotal = $576,984

Issue Date FY: 2020 ( Subtotal = $349,956 )
2020	2020	TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY	1 SILBER WAY	BOSTON	MA	02215	SUFFOLK	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	5	5/27/2020	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$349,956
														Subtotal = $349,956

Issue Date FY: 2019 ( Subtotal = $349,976 )
2019	2019	TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY	1 SILBER WAY	BOSTON	MA	02215	SUFFOLK	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	4	5/22/2019	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$349,976
														Subtotal = $349,976

Issue Date FY: 2018 ( Subtotal = $354,558 )
2018	2018	TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY	1 SILBER WAY	BOSTON	MA	02215	SUFFOLK	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	3	5/16/2018	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$354,558
														Subtotal = $354,558

Issue Date FY: 2017 ( Subtotal = $353,586 )
2017	2017	TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY	1 SILBER WAY	BOSTON	MA	02215	SUFFOLK	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	001	2	5/24/2017	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$35,359
2017	2017	TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY	1 SILBER WAY	BOSTON	MA	02215	SUFFOLK	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	2	5/11/2017	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$318,227
														Subtotal = $353,586

Issue Date FY: 2016 ( Subtotal = $331,351 )
2016	2016	BOSTON UNIVERSITY	25 BUICK ST	BOSTON	MA	02215	SUFFOLK	USA	Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders	000	1	5/23/2016	NEW	$331,351
														Subtotal = $331,351

Grand Total All Awards = $3,376,844

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Development of Gaze Control for Integration of Language and Visual Information in Deaf Children

Award Number: R01DC015272

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DEAFNESS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION DISORDERS

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

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