Deaf students’ performance on the Children Color Trails Test:
Effect of early sign language acquisition
LANGUAGE: American Sign Langauge
This project explored the relationship between age of language acquisition and
the development of the executive function (EF). Past research have suggested
that hearing children with Specific Language Impairment (Marton, 2008;
Windsor& Hwang, 1999) and individuals with aphasia (Fridricksson, Nettles, &
Davis, 2006) exhibited EF difficulties. However, these results are based on
correlational studies. To determine whether delayed language development has
an impact on executive function development, we focused on deaf children form
hearing families who were not exposed to their first visual language until later
after birth. We hypothesized that deaf children with delayed sign language
acquisition, compared to deaf native signers, will perform worse on a specific test
of executive functions, the Color Trail Making Test.
The both the Children Color Trail Test (CCTT) and Color Trail Test (CTT) were
administered to deaf children and adults. The Test has two tasks: the first trail
making task requires the subject to navigate the circles following sequential
number order, whereas the second trail making task requires the subject to
adhere to the sequential number order while alternating colors. Thus, testing
their potential of their shifting/inhibiting by how well they are able to perform the
task and how fast with minimal errors and prompts. Those who have weak EF
are known to make more mistakes (sequentially in numbers and alternating with
colors), require more time to complete the task (in seconds), and need more
prompts (cues that indicate the next answer and if mistakes are made) in
comparison with those who have well-developed EF.
Currently, we have preliminary data and we are currently collecting more
data. Our preliminary analysis has shown that those who had earlier the
acquisition of sign language illustrated statistically significant fewer errors,
prompts, and faster completion time. We anticipate completing our data
collection in the Spring of 2013 and will share the results at TISLR. These
results are imperative because they will help us better understand the effects of
language acquisition on the development of EF skills and the results will have a
translational impact on the early intervention programs for the deaf.