Phonological processes in children's acquisition of American Sign Language

This study describes six phonological processes in the signing of twelve typically developing deaf 24-month-olds learning American Sign Language natively from their deaf parents. Two-handed signs in previously collected naturalistic data were analyzed for phonological patterns. Resulting patterns observed were: reduced crossing of hands and arms; synchronization of alternating movements; weak hand lenition, including weak hand drop and weak hand freeze; and over-reduplication (more than three syllables). Reduced crossing was used an average of 70% of possible instances and was used by all children. Synchronization was consistently used by only two children (67% of possible instances), but this may have been influenced by lexical choice. Weak hand lenition was used by all children an average of 27% of all two-handed tokens in the study. Reduplication was used by all children an average of 31% of the time. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.