Science Friday Kids' Connection^tm -- in association with Kidsnet
Sign Language and Learning (September 17, 2004, One)

Program Summary | Guests | Related Links and Resources | For Discussion | Activities | Hear the program | About Kids Connection | SFKC Home

Program Summary

Words fly fast and furiously in the small Nicaraguan classroom, but no sound is heard. These students are deaf and are conversing in sign language. What’s so unusual about that? The children use a system not found anywhere else on Earth.

Dubbed Nicaraguan Sign Language, the system arose spontaneously in the early 1980's among students in a new school for the deaf who had had no exposure to sign language and thus no way of communicating with one another. They developed a repertoire of gestures that, over that past twenty years, has evolved into what linguists consider a true language, with verb tenses, sentence structure, and representation of abstract concepts. Researchers have been able to trace the evolution of the language by comparing the differences in usage by the students who invented it and those who use it today. Observing NSL may also give us insight into how human language first emerged.

The birth of a wholly independent system raises intriguing questions about how the brain enables the learning of language. Is there a template hard-wired in the human brain that shapes language acquisition, no matter what the language? Why are children able to learn language much more easily than adults? At what age does the ability to learn a new language level off? Linguists hope to find answers to these questions by comparing and contrasting Nicaraguan sign language to signing systems developed in other cultures.

Guests

Ann Senghas, director of the Language Acquisition and Development Laboratory and assistant professor of psychology at Barnard College, Columbia University, in New York City

Related Links and Resources

About.com: Sign language
Economist.com, February 19, 2004: “The Origins of Language: Signs of Success”
HandSpeak.com
All Things Considered, National Public Radio, September 16, 2004: “Deaf Students Form New Language”
SignWriting in Nicaragua Directory

Articles Discussed

"Children Creating Core Properties of Language: Evidence from an Emerging Sign Language in Nicaragua," by A. Senghas et al. Science, 17 September 2004.(AAAS membership or online registration required for access to this article)

For Discussion:

• Why was Nicaraguan Sign Language created? How has it changed over the past two decades?
• Why do linguists consider NSL a true language?
• What do you think the development of NSL can teach us about the birth and evolution of human language?
• What parts of the brain control language? How does brain damage affect language learning and speaking?
• Why do you think children are better than adults at learning languages?

Activities

Something new under the sun. CBS News “60 Minutes” examines the development of Nicaraguan Sign Language and the freedom it brought in “Birth of a Language.” Students can watch a video featuring one of the students who benefited from the language and now teaches it.

Say what? Over several class periods, have the class create and practice an original rudimentary sign language. Then divide the class into smaller groups and assign each group a very simple, well-known story (i.e. “Three Little Pigs” or “Ferdinand the Bull”), which they must present to the rest of the class using the new sign language. Discuss the difficulties they experienced, how they chose signs, the frustrations of not being understood.

Sign of the times. Discovery School gives students the opportunity to learn American Sign Language in A Sense for Technology lesson plan, while The Human Animal discusses the role of body language in human communication. One activity has students go “people-watching,” observing what emotions or relationships are expressed with body language.

Word up! Neuroscience for Kids explores brain structure in relation to learning language. Visit The Brain and Language, Age Differences in Language Processing, Second Language Learning, and Sign Language and the Brain to learn what parts of the brain are involved in language acquisition and how the brain processes spoken versus written language. “Study Sheds Light on How Brain Process Language” (CNN Tomorrow/Today) presents the result of research that studied differences in the brains of child and adult second language learners.

Going, going, gone. Endangered animals, endangered plants, endangered…languages? While a new language has been born, there are many that are in danger of disappearing as the number of people speaking them dwindles. Find out why at Science Friday’s Endangered Languages.

Use the search box below to perform a Google search within any of the specifc sites or general domains mentioned in this Activities section.

Hear the Program

Listen to this program in RealAudio!

RealAudio archive courtesy of NPR Online. If nothing happens when you click the link, you may need to download a free player.