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Influence of testing language and aging on verbal list learning in deaf ASL-English bilinguals.
Poster Session D, Saturday, September 13, 5:00 - 6:30 pm, Field House
Sadie Camilliere1,2, Karen Emmorey1, Tamar H. Gollan2, Peter C. Hauser3, Jessica Contreras3, Michael Mckee4; 1San Diego State University, 2University of California, San Diego, 3Rochester Institute of Technology, 4University of Michigan
Evaluation of memory function is a key component of many neuropsychological assessments, yet there is no standardized list memory task that has been widely adopted for use with deaf ASL-English bilinguals. Further, while it is known that testing hearing bilinguals in their non-dominant language yields worse performance and may lead to false positive diagnosis of cognitive decline, it is not known how language of testing affects free recall in deaf bilinguals, particularly in older deaf individuals. The current study investigated how testing language and age impacted recall performance on a word list learning task in deaf ASL-English bilinguals. Thirty-two young (ages 20-45) and 32 older (ages 65-84) deaf ASL-English bilinguals were included in the study. All participants reported daily use of ASL as a primary language, and the older and younger groups did not differ in years of education or in self-ratings of ASL or English proficiency. Participants completed two list memory tasks, one with visually presented ASL stimuli (videos) and one with visually presented English stimuli (printed words). The order of language presentation was counterbalanced across participants. Participants saw a list of 10 ASL signs and a list of 10 English words (unrelated to the ASL signs) for immediate recall over three learning trials with items presented in different orders for each learning trial. They then completed a delayed recall trial, which occurred about 10 minutes after the third learning trial. All but one participant preferred to recall items in ASL, both when recalling lists presented in ASL and lists presented in written English. Thus, deaf bilinguals preferred to translate English words into ASL, rather than use spoken or fingerspelled English responses for list recall. In addition, all bilinguals (but one) mouthed during signed productions of lists in both languages, which represents a form of code-blending. Older bilinguals recalled fewer items than young bilinguals on all learning trials. Older bilinguals also showed reduced primacy scores on Trial 1 in both languages, recalling fewer items in the first three list positions than younger bilinguals. An analysis of forgetting showed that young bilinguals learned and then forgot the same number of items in both languages after a delay, but older bilinguals exhibited a more complex pattern in which English seemed to benefit learning, but ASL reduced forgetting. That is, older bilinguals recalled more English items than ASL items on Trial 3, but subsequently recalled fewer English than ASL items after a delay. Finally, testing language order did not impact overall learning or primacy scores, but it did affect forgetting scores with participants forgetting more items in whichever language was tested second. Given the importance of delayed recall in differential diagnosis, our results indicate that it may be critical to test memory in ASL rather than English for older deaf bilinguals. However, additional research is needed to determine which language of testing will maximize diagnostic power in this population, and to determine why older bilinguals exhibited greater effects of testing language than young bilinguals.
Topic Areas: Signed Language and Gesture, Multilingualism