Impoverished language in early childhood affects the development of complex sentence structure

The hypothesis that impoverished language experience affects complex sentence structure development around the end of early childhood was tested using a fully randomized, sentence-to-picture matching study in American Sign Language (ASL). The participants were ASL signers who had impoverished or typical access to language in early childhood. Deaf signers whose access to language was highly impoverished in early childhood (N = 11) primarily comprehended structures consisting of a single verb and argument (Subject or Object), agreeing verbs, and the spatial relation or path of semantic classifiers. They showed difficulty comprehending more complex sentence structures involving dual lexical arguments or multiple verbs. As predicted, participants with typical language access in early childhood, deaf native signers (N = 17) or hearing second-language learners (N = 10), comprehended the range of 12 ASL sentence structures, independent of the subjective iconicity or frequency of the stimulus lexical items, or length of ASL experience and performance on non-verbal cognitive tasks. The results show that language experience in early childhood is necessary for the development of complex syntax. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Previous research with deaf signers suggests an inflection point around the end of early childhood for sentence structure development. Deaf signers who experienced impoverished language until the age of 9 or older comprehend several basic sentence structures but few complex structures. Language experience in early childhood is necessary for the development of complex sentence structure.