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Updated: Apr 30, 2026

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm
Published on: May 15, 2019
Parents align American Sign Language (ASL) input with deaf children's gaze
Paris Gappmayr1, Naomi Caselli1, Amy M Lieberman1
1Wheelock College of Education and Human Development, Boston University.
None:
Deaf children learning sign language must direct gaze to their caregivers to perceive linguistic input. To determine how much linguistic input children perceive from their parents, we analyzed naturalistic play sessions between signing deaf children (N=24) aged 9-60 months (M=35 months) and their deaf (n = 15) and hearing (n = 9) parents. Sessions were videotaped and coded for all ASL signs, gaze and attention-getting cues. Across all participants, 30% of sign tokens were fully perceived, and an additional 17% were partially perceived. Factors predicting sign perception included child age, having a deaf parent, and the sign's position in the utterance. Our findings suggest that parents using ASL are sensitive to their child's gaze and time their utterances so they are most likely to be seen.
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