Hearing Loss and the Acquisition of English Plural Morphology Benjamin Davies | Nan Xu Rattanasone | Katherine Demuth

Macquarie University, Faculty of Human Sciences, The Department of Linguistics, HEARing Cooperative Research Centre

Introduction •  Children with hearing loss (HL) have trouble acquiring

English plural morphology – fricatives /s/, /z/, /əz/ [1,2]

•  Eye-tracking studies with normal hearing (NH) children show plural allomorphy affects acquisition; monolinguals are sensitive to plural /s/ by 2;0 and /əz/ by 3;0 [3,4]

•  Bilingual NH children’s acquisition of English plural affected by L1; children from Chinese L1 background have particular problems [5,6]

•  When do children with HL become sensitive to English plural morphology?

•  How do allomorphic variation and language background affect plural acquisition in children with HL?

Method A portable force-choice nonce-word paradigm delivered on an iPad enables testing in clinics and daycares Participants

•  NH children and children with HL •  Aged 3-5 years •  Different language backgrounds

Tested so far •  5 children with HL from The Shepherd Centre •  60 NH 3- and 4-year-olds from 8 daycares •  22 English monolinguals, 19 Chinese-speaking

children and 19 children speaking other L1s Target

•  ≈ 100 children with HL from The Shepherd Centre •  ≈ 250 NH children from local daycares

Design

•  Delivered on iPad •  Forced choice paradigm

Single unfamiliar picture vs. plural unfamiliar picture •  Nonse word played as singular or plural

e.g., “Touch the tep!” or “Touch the degs!” •  36 nonse word trials

All three plural allomorphs: /s/, /z/, /əz/ Copula is/are

Preliminary Results

•  Children perform best with plural copula support •  NH children at chance with singular condition •  Monolingual & non-Chinese L1 plural above chance

Predicted Results: Children with HL •  Expect effects of

•  Hearing device •  Age of fitting •  Type of hearing loss •  Language background

•  Slower acquisition by children with HL •  However, due to language therapy, some HL children

may be comparable, or better than NH counterparts •  Plural allomorphy may affect children’s performance

•  Plural /əz/ salience may facilitate performance

Implications •  Gain insight into grammatical knowledge of children

with HL •  Identify effects of language background and HL on

acquisition of English grammar •  Establish norms for iPad paradigm to be used for

assessment or therapy

References [1] Schorr, E. A., Roth, F. P., & Fox, N. A. (2008). A comparison of the speech and language skills of children with cochlear implants and children with normal hearing. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 29(4), 195-210. [2] Cooper, R. L. (1967). The ability of deaf and hearing children to apply morphological rules. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research,10(1), 77-86. [3] Davies, B., Xu Rattanasone, N., & Demuth, K. (in Press). Children’s sensitivity to English Plural Morphology: Allomorphic Effects. Language Learning and Development. [4] Davies, B., Xu Rattanasone, N., & Demuth, K. (in Prep). The emergence of abstract lexical and morphological representations: sensitivity to plural -es [5] Jia, G. (2003). The acquisition of the English plural morpheme by native Mandarin Chinese-speaking children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 46(6), 1297-1311. [6] Jia, G., & Fuse, A. (2007). Acquisition of English grammatical morphology by native Mandarin-speaking children and adolescents: Age-related differences. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 50(5), 1280-1299.

Many thanks to The Shepherd Centre!

creating sound value www.hearingcrc.org

Singular Plural is… dap are… daps is... bix are… bicks

tep teps deg degs tizz tizzes

dass dasses “Touch the teps”