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

August 20, 2026 updated by: Boston University Charles River Campus
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.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The investigators will investigate how deaf children prioritize input cues to word meaning when linguistic cues (i.e. mutual exclusivity) and referential gaze are in conflict in a structured word learning task.

Participants: Deaf children (n=40) ages 18 to 60 months are eligible to participate. Investigators will recruit 60 children to allow for 33% attrition. While the inclusion criteria are the same as other studies, here investigators do use spoken language exposure as a grouping variable, as follows: based on responses to the language background questionnaire regarding exposure to spoken English, participants will be grouped according to language use as monolingual ASL or bimodal bilingual (spoken English/ASL). Participants will be identified as bimodal bilingual is 1) the primary caregiver reports spoken English to communicate with their child (either alone or in conjunction with ASL), and 2) the primary caregiver reports that their child's ability to understand spoken English is at least a 3 on a Likert-type scale ranging from 0-5. Parents in this group will complete the short-form English CDI in addition to the ASL language measures.

Procedure: Participants will sit across a table from an experimenter who will present pairs of objects--one familiar, one novel--with one pair in each of nine trials (three per condition). The experimenter will prompt the participant to give them one of the toys, signing "I WANT YOU-GIVE-ME WHAT?" Then the experimenter will provide a cue; the child's selection will be recorded. In the gaze condition, the cue will be a gaze shift to the familiar object. In the mutual exclusivity condition, the cue will be a novel sign. In the conflict condition, both a gaze shift to the familiar object and a novel sign will be used. The trial order and object pair will be pseudo-randomly assigned.

Planned analysis: Investigators will use an omnibus mixed effects binomial model to determine how well condition and language environment predict the likelihood to select the novel object, with item and child as random factors.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

48

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Massachusetts
      • Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02215
        • Boston University

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Deaf children ages 18-60 months
  • born severely to profoundly deaf
  • have either deaf or hearing parents
  • communicate using American Sign Language
  • have normal to corrected normal vision

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Deaf children who have not been exposed to American Sign Language

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Basic Science
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Word learning from referential cues
All participants are provided pairs of objects (one familiar, one novel) with an accompanying prompt. The prompt types are 1) gaze (3 trials); 2) mutual exclusivity (3 trials); or 3) conflict (3 trials)
Other: input cue
The object is labelled with 1) gaze only; 2) novel label only; or 3) conflicting gaze and novel label

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Novel Object Selected
Time Frame: Trial time frame: 10 seconds, beginning from the end of the experimenter's prompt, i.e. once the experimenter asked the child for an object, the child had 10 seconds to respond by selecting one of the two presented objects.
In each trial two objects are presented to the child, one novel and one familiar, along with one of three prompt types. Children select one of the two objects on the table in front of them by picking it up and handing it to the experimenter. One each trial, the selected object is scored as novel or familiar based on which object is selected. Data is analyzed as proportion of trials on which the novel object was selected.
Trial time frame: 10 seconds, beginning from the end of the experimenter's prompt, i.e. once the experimenter asked the child for an object, the child had 10 seconds to respond by selecting one of the two presented objects.

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Boston University Charles River Campus

Collaborators

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Amy Lieberman, PhD, Boston University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

August 7, 2023

Primary Completion (Actual)

June 20, 2025

Study Completion (Actual)

June 20, 2025

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 7, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 7, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

August 15, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

September 15, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 20, 2026

Last Verified

August 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 4067E
  • R01DC015272 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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