Influence of testing language and aging on verbal list memory in deaf American Sign Language-English bilinguals

The present study examined aging and testing-language effects on verbal list learning in young adult and older deaf bilinguals of American Sign Language (ASL) and written English. It is not known which language maximizes free recall, and no list learning task has been widely adopted for testing this population.

Thirty-two younger (aged 20-45) and 32 older (aged 64-84) deaf ASL-English bilinguals completed list memory tests in each language. Participants were shown videos of 10 ASL signs and 10 written English words one at a time for immediate recall across three learning trials and a delayed recall trial, with language of testing counterbalanced.

Younger participants showed no effect of language on recall, recalled more items than older participants in both languages, and had higher primacy scores on Trial 1. Older participants showed better learning when tested in English but higher rates of forgetting compared to when they were tested in ASL (a robust interaction between language and group with a medium-to-large effect size, η_p² = 0.11). Both young and older participants forgot more items in whichever language was tested second. Though most deaf participants reported being more proficient in ASL, an equal number of deaf participants recalled more English than ASL list items as vice versa (i.e., more ASL items than English items).

Use of both ASL and English lists maximizes different aspects of memory performance in older deaf participants, with English benefitting learning and ASL minimizing forgetting. However, a complete characterization of memory requires testing in both languages. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).