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The Acquisition Of Classifiers In American Sign Language, Rebecca Kantor

Rebecca Kantor

The purpose of this study was to obtain data on the developmental stages that deaf children pass through in acquiring the adult form of pronominal classifiers in American Sign Language, by obtaining data on production, comprehension, and imitation from nine children aged three to eleven years. All nine children are congenitally, profoundly deaf and have deaf parents. In all cases classifiers were mastered much later than would be predicted from a timetable for signs with similar structure. Evidence was found for a developmental sequence and for acquisition strategies similar to those that have been identified for hearing children learning a …