Development of language and memory for spatial relations
What is it about?
The development of spatial language is considered to be determined by an interaction of cognitive and linguistic factors. In the previous literature, the interplay of these factors has been studied exclusively by focusing on the linguistic variation across different spoken languages and focusing on hearing children who are exposed to language from birth. In the current thesis, I investigated the role of variation in language modality such as in speech, gesture, and sign as well as the role of variation in the timing of language exposure as in late versus early exposure to sign language as novel perspectives to enhance our understanding of the relation between linguistic and cognitive factors influencing spatial language development. I also investigated whether such variations in spatial language use predict subsequent memory for spatial relations. For these investigations, data was elicited from child and adult hearing speakers of Turkish as well as child and adult deaf signers of Turkish Sign Language (Türk İşaret Dili [TİD]) residing in Istanbul. The findings obtained in my thesis contributed to a larger body of knowledge suggesting that the development of spatial language use is shaped by an intricate interplay between cognitive and linguistic factors. Results have shown explicitly that although the variation in language modality and timing of sign language exposure influence the development of spatial language use, these variations do not necessarily predict the relationship between spatial language use and spatial memory. Possible theoretical and methodological implications have been addressed to guide future research.
Why is it important?
Children, from early on, see and interact with the objects surrounding them (e.g., a fork next to a plate). They also need to communicate and reason about these objects and the spatial relations between them to function and navigate successfully in the world. In my dissertation, I investigated the questions of how children develop the ability to communicate and reason about spatial relations and which factors influence this development.