Auditory Cortical Deactivation in American Sign Language Users During Word Production

This preliminary study aims to identify inhibitory activity in auditory regions, detected during the production of American Sign Language (ASL), observed by electroencephalography (EEG) analysis; and, observe how this activity compares to speech inhibition during spoken language.

The population of interest includes native ASL users who are prelingually deaf. The recruitment will occur on Gallaudet University’s campus during the spring semester of 2019. The target number of participants is five to seven (N=5-7) adults over 18.

Face-to-face data collection will last approximately 90 minutes, per participant. Clinically, results will have potential applicability to future studies regarding neural plasticity and speech processing during self-production of language.