Aspects of Children’s Finnish Sign Language Development and Learning  (DeveLS)

Main funder

Funder's project number: 355109

Funds granted by main funder (€)

Funding program

Project timetable

Project start date: 01/09/2023

Project end date: 31/08/2027

Summary

This project investigates the characteristics of children’s Finnish Sign Language (FinSL) development and learning from a multidisciplinary perspective that combines novel insights from language assessment, multilingualism research, sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics. This research aims to develop new technical solutions and practices regarding game-based language learning in signing families to support children’s and parents’ FinSL learning and interactions. Research on SL development is a fairly new field, and knowledge on how SL is acquired and how it develops in children is lacking. The context for children’s SL development is exceptional, but existing studies have mainly been based on relatively small data sets focusing only on marginal parts of signing children’s population. Thus, the aim of the proposed research is to determine the features that characterise children’s FinSL development and learning. More specifically, it aims to study the features of their FinSL development according to vocabulary, grammatical and narrative skills from the perspectives of linguistic environment, language assessment, game-based language learning and corpus linguistics. The data comprise a large data set on SL assessment on children acquiring FinSL (n=200), the Corpus FinSL materials on adult FinSL signers (n=35) and data from the game-based FinSL learning programme conducted with signing families (n=20 families, 25 children). Both qualitative and quantitative data analyses will be conducted. The analysis will be based on the results of different FinSL assessment tools regarding the features of FinSL development, the results of a parental questionnaire regarding the features of children’s linguistic environments, the functionality of the game-based learning material in children’s FinSL development in relation to the FinSL learning programme and the comparative corpus linguistics study on the features of children’s and adults’ signing. This research acknowledges the heterogeneity of the signing children’s population; by studying large data sets with multidisciplinary theoretical and methodological perspectives, it aims to build a more accurate reflection of the signing children’s population and their SL development. This research will bring new theoretical, methodological and technical insights into SL development and learning, which have great societal impacts on SL teaching, education and equality in society, especially for signing children and their families.

Principal Investigator

Other persons related to this project (JYU)

Primary responsible unit

Web page

https://www.jyu.fi/fi/hankkeet/nakokulmia-lasten-suomalaisen-viittomakielen-kehitykseen-ja-oppimiseen-devels

Follow-up groups

Profiling area: Multidisciplinary research on learning and teaching (University of Jyväskylä JYU) MultiLeTe; Multiliteracies for social participation and in learning across the life span (University of Jyväskylä JYU) MultiLEAP; 2021-2026. Formerly RECLAS; School of Wellbeing (University of Jyväskylä JYU) JYU.Well; Social Sustainability for Children and Families (University of Jyväskylä JYU) SOSUS

Related research datasets