An intervention program: Helping deaf children with hearing parents in acquiring Turkish Sign Language

Date

2026-8-18

Author

Özdemir, Hilal

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Many deaf children born to hearing parents experience delayed exposure to sign language, creating a need for interventions that support early lexical development. However, little is known about how late-signing children acquire lexical signs and whether this process is influenced by structural properties such as iconicity (the relationship between a linguistic form and its referent) and phonological complexity (the organization of movement, handshape, location, and orientation). This study investigated lexical development in late-signing children through a 9-week intervention using a mobile web application developed to teach lexical signs in Turkish Sign Language (TİD). We examined (1) whether children acquired lexical signs during the intervention and (2) how iconicity, phonological complexity, and their interaction influenced learning. 13 deaf children participated. Each child was individually taught 233 signs through Exposure and Test modules comprising a two-choice recognition task matching TİD sign videos to images across 14 semantic categories. Vocabulary knowledge was assessed before (Pre-Test) and after (Post-Test) the intervention, with weekly Immediate Tests and Retests administered throughout intervention. Children showed significant improvement in TİD vocabulary from Pre- to Post-Test, particularly for highly iconic signs. Iconicity facilitated both vocabulary acquisition and retention over time. Phonological complexity affected performance at the earliest stage of learning, even for signs with moderate or high iconicity, but this effect disappeared after repeated exposure, suggesting that intervention can overcome initial learning difficulty. Overall, these findings provide preliminary evidence for effectiveness of a digital intervention and highlight the potential of platforms to support sign language acquisition in late-signing children.

Subject Keywords

Late Signing Children, Turkish Sign Language (TİD), Intervention, Iconicity, Phonological Complexity

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/120061

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis