FY 2008 Annual Report of Achievements - Gallaudet University

Comparison of Lexical Versus Morphological Grouping of Graphemes in
Learning New Words
Status: Ongoing Begin date: March 2007 End date: No set date
Principal Investigator(s):
Barac-Cikoja, Dragana – Gallaudet Research
Institute
Kelly, Leonard – Gallaudet Research Institute
Other Investigator(s):
Qi, Sen – Gallaudet Research Institute
Cole, Kevin – Gallaudet Research Institute
Klein, Leslie (student) – Psychology
Murphy, Leah (student) – Psychology
Brownfield, Adam (student) – Psychology
Description:
This project examines a method of teaching words to deaf readers by dividing target words
into meaningful parts (morphemes) that pertain to well-known ASL signs. Such a presentation of
meaningful word segments contrasts with the usual method that many deaf readers use to learn new
words, namely, by memorizing either whole letter strings or one or more graphical features that they
consider salient. The proposed method may prove beneficial to deaf readers because it promises to
foster the effective decoding of the meaning of newly encountered words by emphasizing their
morphological composition. It may allow deaf readers to partly sidestep the memory challenges of
learning words as entire unanalyzed units. Once well learned, a morpheme-based strategy could be
applied to decode the meanings of the many thousands of words composed of these meaningful
word parts. In addition, the initial analytical processing of words into their morphemes may allow
readers to develop more structured representations of the words that would lead to more efficient
activation of their meanings when encountered in the future.
The proposed study will test the efficacy of an approach that presents words segmented
according to their constituent morphemes by comparing it to the more commonplace approach of
presenting words as whole units or presenting them separated into syllables (i.e., phonology based
grouping). Development is complete on screening measures and procedures, training materials and
procedures, and outcome measures. All of the latter are automated. Data collection will begin soon.
Funding source: GRI Priority Fund, NSF (VL2)
FY 2007-2008 product(s):
Kelly, L., & Barac-Cikoja, D. (2008, February). Elements of skill crucial for deaf readers: What we know, what we don’t know, and
promise (not promises) for the future. Presentation at the Visual Language and Learning (VL2) Series, Gallaudet
University, Washington, DC.
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