Lexie

Title:
Early Grammatical Marking Development in Mandarin-speaking Toddlers

Abstract:
The current study examined specific and in-depth early grammatical marking development in a relatively understudied language, Mandarin, by using the Mandarin version of MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CCDI-P) with two waves of data collection including 338 monolingual children (17-36 months; 143 females) at Time 1 and 308 children (32-55 months; 139 females) at Time 2. Our data showed a clear order of grammatical marking acquisition among these children and supported findings on the linguistic-specificity of morphological development such that early-and late-acquired markers in English are not acquired in that same order in Mandarin. Negative mei2, bu4, Posessive -de, Classifiers, and the Aspect marker- le were the earliest acquired markers, followed by Modal, Negative bie2, Adverb, Sentence Final Particles, Resultative Verb Compound, and Aspect markers guo4 and yao4. Complex Clauses and the Aspect marker zheng4 were acquired the latest. Furthermore, consistent with previous cross-linguistic studies, the development patterns of a wide range of Mandarin grammatical markers indicate that markers that are more perceptually salient, obligatory, have clear form-meaning mappings and often appear in isolation or utterance-final position ware acquired earlier than others.

Chi-Lin

Title:
Theory-of-Mind Development in Young Deaf Children With Early Hearing Provisions

Abstract:
Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children born to hearing parents have
profound theory-of-mind (ToM) delays, yet little is known about how providing hearing assistance early in life, through cochlear implants and hearing aids, influences their ToM development. We thus addressed (a) whether young DHH children with early hearing provision developed ToM differently than older children did in previous research and (b) what ToM understandings characterize this understudied population. Findings from 84 three- to six-year-old DHH
children primarily acquiring spoken language demonstrated that accumulated hearing experience influenced their ToM, as measured by a five- step ToM scale. Moreover, language abilities mediated this developmental relationship: Children with more advanced language abilities, because of more time using cochlear implants and hearing aids, had better ToM growth. These findings demonstrate the crucial relationships among hearing, language, and ToM for DHH children
acquiring spoken language, thereby addressing theoretical and practical questions about ToM development.