Counting in Sign Language

Abstract

Do the visuomanual modality and the structure of the sequence of numbers in sign language have an impact on the development of counting and its use by deaf children? The sequence of number signs in Belgian French Sign Language follows a base-5 rule while the number sequence in oral French follows a base-10 rule. The accuracy and use of sequence number string were investigated in hearing children varying in age from 3 years 4 months to 5 years 8 months and in deaf children varying in age from 4 years to 6 years 2 months. Three tasks were used: abstract counting, object counting, and creation of sets of a given cardinality. Deaf children exhibited age-related lags in their knowledge of the number sequence; they made different errors from those of hearing children, reflecting the rule-bound nature of sign language. Remarkably, their performance in object counting and creating sets of given cardinality was similar to that of hearing children who had a longer sequence number string, indicating a better use of counting than predicted by their knowledge of the linguistic sequence of numbers.

How Humans Count: Numerosity and the Parietal Cortex

“…Indeed, several imaging studies of counting showed activation in Broca's area, in the primary motor cortex in the mouth region, and right cerebellum, all associated with internal speech (Hinton and others 2004). Deaf children perform identically to hearing children on this task, using their visuospatial rehearsal loop (Leybaert and Van Cutsem 2002). Contrary to estimation and small numerosity apprehension, the counting mechanisms have no equivalent in nonhuman animals, are not universal among human cultures (Gordon 2004;Pica and others 2004), and are acquired very progressively in an effortful process by human children (Wynn 1990).…”

Encyclopedia of Mathematics Education

“…Deaf children lag behind hearing children in learning to count, independently of whether they are learning to count orally or in sign (Leybaert and Van Cutsem 2002). Consequently, they perform less well than hearing children on schoolentry numeracy tests, which typically include tasks that require counting (e.g., "show me 5 blocks"; "tell me which number is bigger").…”

The Story of an Outlier: … A Case Study of One Young Deaf Child and His Journey Towards Early Mathematical Competence

“…These delays do not start at school age. Research indicates that even preschool-age deaf children (3-5 years) may be substantially behind in foundational mathematics concepts (Leybaert & Van Cutsem, 2002;Kritzer, 2009aKritzer, , 2009b.…”