Delayed First Language Exposure Negatively Impacts Representation of Small Quantities: Evidence from Deaf and...

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Development
• Developmental Psychology
• Linguistics

Background:

• Most deaf and hard-of-hearing children have hearing parents, leading to delayed first language acquisition.
• Language delays can negatively impact cognitive development, including the representation of large quantities.
• The core knowledge view suggests nonverbal representations of small quantities (1-3) should be unaffected by language delays.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effects of language modality (spoken vs. signed) and timing of language exposure (early vs. later) on the nonverbal representation of small quantities in young children.
• To examine the relationship between early language exposure and the development of exact quantity representations.
• To explore the influence of the cardinal principle on small quantity representation.

Main Methods:

• Adapted the "Mr. Elephant" task to assess children's (3-7 years) performance on quantities 2 and 3.
• Utilized logistic regression to analyze the impact of language timing, socioeconomic status, modality, and age.
• Incorporated "Highest Count" and "Give-a-Number" (cardinal principle knowledge) as exploratory measures.

Main Results:

• Early language exposure significantly predicted better performance on the "Mr. Elephant" task compared to later exposure.
• Knowledge of the cardinal principle (assessed by "Give-N") independently predicted success on the task.
• Language modality and age did not significantly affect performance, while socioeconomic status showed an initial significant effect that was not maintained in the exploratory analysis.

Conclusions:

• The timing of language exposure is associated with the development of small quantity representations in young children.
• Understanding the cardinal principle is linked to accurate nonverbal representations of small quantities.
• These findings highlight the importance of early language access for cognitive development in deaf and hard-of-hearing children.