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Word Learning in Deaf Children Using Eye-tracking and Behavioral Measures

NCT05993832 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 48

Last updated 2026-04-27

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Mutual exclusivity is a word learning constraint in which the learner assumes that a given word refers to only one category of objects. In spoken languages, mutual exclusivity has been demonstrated in monolingual children as young as 17 months and cross-linguistically, while multilingual learners show an attenuated mutual exclusivity bias. Mutual exclusivity has not been robustly demonstrated in deaf children acquiring American Sign Language (ASL). Further, it is unclear if mutual exclusivity applies to those learning both a signed and a spoken language. Like unimodal bilinguals, bimodal bilingual (BiBi) children learn two words for an object, but these words are separated by modality. A BiBi child could therefore assume that all objects have two words (like unimodal bilinguals) or that all objects have one spoken word and one sign (within-modality mutual exclusivity). The goals of the current study are to demonstrate mutual exclusivity in monolingual deaf children acquiring ASL, and to determine if BiBi deaf children utilize mutual exclusivity within each modality.

Conditions

  • Deafness

Interventions

OTHER

input cue

The object is labelled with 1) gaze only; 2) novel label only; or 3) conflicting gaze and novel label

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Boston University Charles River Campus

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Amy Lieberman, PhD · Boston University

Study Design

Allocation
NA
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
NONE
Model
SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Months
Max Age
60 Months
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2023-08-07
Primary Completion
2025-06-20
Completion
2025-06-20

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT05993832 on ClinicalTrials.gov