This award partially supports Professors Keith Nelson and Philip Prinz of Pennsylvania State University for collaborative research in linguistics with Professors Siegmund Prillwitz of the University of Hamburg and Inger Ahlgren, Lenore Arnberg and Peter Arnberg of the University of Stockholm. They are collaborating in research designed to further our understanding of the processes by which children utilize available language input in order to analyze and acquire new rules and skills in different linguistic modes (spoken, written and signed). Prior and continuing experimental and observational research by the American co-principal investigators has demonstrated that children readily process and make use of replies to their own speech and sign utterances when the replies recast the child's meanings into related but more complex sentence structures. This effect has been seen in the acquisition of sign language as well as spoken language. It is hypothesized that similar acquisition processes and effects of input components (such as recasts) are involved when children acquire new text skills (such as reading and writing) and second language skills. This collaboration will combine studies of multiple sign languages (German, Swedish and American) and reading and writing acquisition by children whose first language may be any of these sign languages or a dominant or minority spoken language in the corresponding countries. Such diversity of subjects will allow more rigorous testing of process assumptions than could possibly be achieved by concentrating on American English in the United States alone. The collaboration will include close process analyses of newly acquired skills through comprehension and reaction time testing using microcomputers, in the various codes that are accessible to any individual child. Analyses of cross linguistic similarities and differences at varied levels of code mastery will be pursued. The ongoing and prior work of the American investigators and their European collaborators provide a rich foundation for exchange and collaboration on these research topics. Cross-linguistic work is necessary before conclusions can be drawn about the universality of language acquisition mechanisms. Coordinated research in the U.S., the FRG, and Sweden may lead to a considerable expansion of the cross-language and cross-cultural validity of the collaborators' work on the processes of acquiring multiple communication codes. Although the research is process oriented, rather rapid conversion of theoretical advances to advances in educational procedures is expected in the areas of special education, second language learning, and literacy skill training. The use and refinement of research techniques such as the computer-animated signs and graphics promises to benefit other research teams that work with visual language stimuli.
