Semantic fluency in deaf children who use spoken and signed language in comparison with hearing peers

BACKGROUND: Deafness has an adverse impact on children's ability to acquire spoken languages. Signed languages offer a more accessible input for deaf children, but because the vast majority are born to hearing parents who do not sign, their early exposure to sign language is limited. Deaf children as a whole are therefore at high risk of language delays. AIMS: We compared deaf and hearing children's performance on a semantic fluency task. Optimal performance on this task requires a systematic search of the mental lexicon, the retrieval of words within a subcategory and, when that subcategory is exhausted, switching to a new subcategory. We compared retrieval patterns between groups, and also compared the responses of deaf children who used British Sign Language (BSL) with those who used spoken English. We investigated how semantic fluency performance related to children's expressive vocabulary and executive function skills, and also retested semantic fluency in the majority of the children nearly 2 years later, in order to investigate how much progress they had made in that time. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Participants were deaf children aged 6-11 years (N = 106, comprising 69 users of spoken English, 29 users of BSL and eight users of Sign Supported English-SSE) compared with hearing children (N = 120) of the same age who used spoken English. Semantic fluency was tested for the category 'animals'. We coded for errors, clusters (e.g., 'pets', 'farm animals') and switches. Participants also completed the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test and a battery of six non-verbal executive function tasks. In addition, we collected follow-up semantic fluency data for 70 deaf and 74 hearing children, nearly 2 years after they were first tested. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: Deaf children, whether using spoken or signed language, produced fewer items in the semantic fluency task than hearing children, but they showed similar patterns of responses for items most commonly produced, clustering of items into subcategories and switching between subcategories. Both vocabulary and executive function scores predicted the number of correct items produced. Follow-up data from deaf participants showed continuing delays relative to hearing children 2 years later. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: We conclude that semantic fluency can be used experimentally to investigate lexical organization in deaf children, and that it potentially has clinical utility across the heterogeneous deaf population. We present normative data to aid clinicians who wish to use this task with deaf children

Senso e funzioni della fotografia nella poesia verbo-visiva

The essay analyses the essential role of photography in Visual Poetry experimentation, with specific reference to the European context. It aims to exemplify the complexity and aesthetic relevance of this kind of works within the twentieth-century phototexts. It also studies the relations between Visual Poetry and the methodological acquisitions of visual culture studies. In this sense, a paradigmatic sampling of authors (L. Pignotti, L. Ori, E. Miccini, L. Marcucci) is proposed. In them, photography represents, through a constant dialectic with verbal language and pictorial sign, a construction that is a sort of interlingua or super-language to be opposed to advertising.The essay analyses the essential role of photography in Visual Poetry experimentation, with specific reference to the European context. It aims to exemplify the complexity and aesthetic relevance of this kind of works within the twentieth-century phototexts. It also studies the relations between Visual Poetry and the methodological acquisitions of visual culture studies. In this sense, a paradigmatic sampling of authors (L. Pignotti, L. Ori, E. Miccini, L. Marcucci) is proposed. In them, photography represents, through a constant dialectic with verbal language and pictorial sign, a construction that is a sort of interlingua or super-language to be opposed to advertising

Chapter Fototesti di viaggio: Absolutely nothing di Giorgio Vasta e Ramak Fazel

The essay examines the travel photo-text genre from a theoretical point of view, through the example of Absolutely Nothing by Giorgio Vasta and Ramak Fazel. It discusses the key issues and perspectives within the theory and methodology of visual studies and visual culture and describes the opposition between the verbal and visual parts of the volume, understood as a “Struggle for Territory”. This puts on strain the foundations of the travel story tradition, such as the narrative authentication

Lucia Marcucci, maestra verbovisiva

This article considers the work of visual-poetry artist and poet Lucia Marcucci. It aims to exemplify the complexity and aesthetic importance of her works. Mischievous irony, political awareness and the unending need for experimentation are but a few of the main qualities of Marcucci’s work identified here. Combined, they entitle this Tuscan artist to be considered one of the masters of her artistic and literary era

Letteratura e cultura visuale. Stato dell’arte e qualche minima proposta

This essay briefly summarizes the state of art on research about the relationship between Visual Culture and Literary Studies. It aims to exemplify the main critical consequences the methodological acquisitions of visual culture studies could bring on the literary discourse. In this sense, the main reflections on ékphrasis, iconotexts, iconisms and scopic regimes are discussed, and a paradigmatic sampling of theories (from W.J.T. Mitchell to G. Boehm) is proposed

Avanguardia o sopravvivenza: il Gruppo 70 e la dischiusura del campo letterario

This article presents literature as a vital and irreplaceable form of human culture. It does so by discussing various prominent works by Gruppo 70, which already by 1963 had conceptualized literary conscience as beyond literature per se. Scurati declared that the necessary broadening of the literary field emerged from the conviction that our literary conscience “is, today, largely integrated, if not mostly integrated, by the use of works which are not mediated by written words”. On the other hand, Lamberto Pignotti’s presentation at the “Art and Communication” symposium (May 1963) underlined how “avant-garde after avant-garde” represented the only survival option for literature in a neo-capitalist society. This article starts from this discussion to analyse the clash between a “closed literature” definition – whereby aesthetic differences imply meaning and value – and an “open literature” definition – literature as a vital and irreplaceable form of human culture. It does so by discussing various prominent works by Gruppo 70

Silvia Albertazzi, <i>Questo è domani Gioventù, cultura e rabbia nel Regno Unito 1956-1967</i>

Recensione del volume Questo è domani. Gioventù, cultura e rabbia nel Regno Unito. 1956-1967 di Silvia Albertazzi

«Il cinese ero io, naturalmente». Sanguineti, Tel Quel e il dibattito politico delle neoavanguardie

The essay recalls the debate between Edoardo Sanguineti and the editorial staff of Tel Quel in a meeting that took place in Cerisy La Salle in 1963. The two positions, which were very distant at the time, were to approach in the immediately following years, also on issues politically urgent posed by the student movement of 1968. The adhesion to Marxism-Leninism and the theoretical reflection of Mao Tse-tung's thought will therefore be common.Il saggio ricostruisce il dibattito tra Edoardo Sanguineti e il comitato editoriale di Tel Quel, in occasione della décade di Cerisy La Salle del 1963. Le due posizioni, molto distanti all’epoca, si riavvicineranno molto negli anni immediatamente successivi, anche per le questioni politicamente urgenti poste dal movimento studentesco del 1968. Comuni risulteranno, infine, l’adesione al marxismo-leninismo e la teorizzazione sopra il pensiero di Mao Tse-tung