Parents align American Sign Language (ASL) input with deaf children’s gaze

Deaf children learning sign language must direct gaze to their caregivers to perceive linguistic input. To determine how much linguistic input children perceive from their parents, we analyzed naturalistic play sessions between signing deaf children (N = 24) aged 9-60 months (M = 35 months) and their deaf (n = 15) and hearing (n = 9) parents. Sessions were videotaped and coded for all American Sign Language (ASL) signs, gaze, and attention-getting cues. Across all participants, 30% of sign tokens were fully perceived, and an additional 17% were partially perceived. Factors predicting sign perception included child age, having a deaf parent, and the sign’s position in the utterance. Our findings suggest that parents using ASL are sensitive to their child’s gaze and time their utterances so they are most likely to be seen.