Evaluating the sign language phonology of sight words used to support deaf/hard of hearing students' literacy development in Idioma de Senas de Nicaragua.

摘要

Over the past 30-years linguists have been witnessing the birth and evolution of a language, Idioma de Senas de Nicaragua, in Nicaragua, and have initiated and documented to date the syntax and grammar of this new language. The purpose of this naturalistic comparative exploratory field study was to evaluate preprimer and primer Dolch sight words and sign language frequency and phonology---location, handshape, and movement---used to support deaf/hard of hearing students' literacy development in Idioma de Senas de Nicaragua compared to American Sign Language. The research focused on the word and sign frequency and phonology or individual components of a Nicaraguan sign that gives it meaning---handshape, location, and movement. Statistically significantly differences in the direction of greater sign to preprimer and primer Dolch Word chi-square frequency comparisons for American Sign Language and Idioma de Senas de Nicaragua were found. Furthermore, based on the moderate to substantial Pearson product-moment correlations and coefficient of determination areas of shared variance observed between Dolch preprimer American Sign Language signed phonemes for handshapes, locations, and movements and Dolch preprimer Idioma de Senas de Nicaragua signed phonemes for handshapes, locations, and movements it may be assumed that children using Idioma de Senas de Nicaragua have between 59% to 97% of the phonemic means of expressing themselves as do children using American Sign Language. For Dolch primer American Sign Language signed phonemes for handshapes, locations, and movements and Dolch primer Idioma de Senas de Nicaragua signed phonemes for handshapes, locations, and movements it may be assumed that children using Idioma de Senas de Nicaragua have between 60% to 94% of the phonemic means of expressing themselves as do children using American Sign Language.