Interesting Facts and Thoughts
Baby Sign
Research shows that babies can communicate physically as early as 6-8 months long before they can communicate vocally. A sign Language also builds linguistic and literate skills, beginning at the earliest age possible. Research shows that children and infants, who sign, show stronger lingual development than others who do not sign.
Hardwired Cognitive Language
The findings at the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University in December 2000 and in other research showed that an area of brain, which is responsible for the natural language, is not based on sound-speech. Deaf people using sign languages use the same speech-like cerebral activity in the brain as hearing people. -- Petitto, Dr. Laura Ann. Untitled. Montreal: McGill University media. October 28, 1997.
Elissa Newport and Sam Supalla in their research showed that "children construct grammatically perfect ASL even when they are exposed (as they so often are) to somewhat less than - perfect ASL - a clear illustration of an innate grammatical competence in the brain." (Sacks, p. 111). In this similar research of James Paul Gee and Wendy Goodhart, "when deaf children are exposed to signed forms of English (manually encoded English), but not ASL, they 'tend to innovate ASL-like forms with little or no input in that language.'" (Sacks, p. 111) Linguist Edward Klima believes that Sign is closer to the language of the mind. -- Sacks, Oliver. Seeing Voices: A Journey Into the World of the Deaf.
Cognitive Processes
In summary of the "Visual imagery and visual-spatial: Enhanced imagery abilities in deaf and hearing ASL signers" article, it analyzes the relation between the use of American Sign Language (ASL) and imagery and hypothesized that "three visual mental imagery abilities are integral to ASL production and comprehension: image generation, maintenance and transformation. It was studied in deaf signers of ASL, hearing ASL signers who have deaf parents, and hearing non-signers." The conclusion of this experiment summarizes as:
"Results indicate that both deaf and hearing ASL signers have an enhanced ability to generate relatively complex images and to detect mirror image reversals. In contrast, there were no group differences in ability to maintain information in images for brief periods or to imagine objects rotating. Signers' enhanced visual imagery abilities may be tied to specific linguistic requirements of ASL (referent visualization, topological classifiers, perspective shift, and reversals during sign perception)." (Emmory, p. 139) Furthermore, the experiments showed that the enhancement of imagery has nothing to do with auditory deprivation, in which a group of hearing ASL signers (who have deaf parents) performed some experimental tasks as well as deaf ASL signers. Therefore, the use of ASL enhances the imagery abilities, or at least they are interactively related.
Emmorey, Karen, et al. "Visual imagery and visual-spatial: Enhanced imagery abilities in deaf and hearing ASL signers." Elsevier Science Publishers. 1993. p. 139-181.