| The present study investigated the role of language in the development of autobiographical memory. Language acquisition is implicated in explanations of infantile amnesia, the phenomenon that most adults recall very few events from prior to the 4th year of life. It is thought that through social interactions with parents, children acquire a narrative form for talking about the past. In situations involving probable language delay, such as the experience of a Deaf child of hearing parents, if language does play a role in the onset of autobiographical memory, earliest memories may correspond more closely with age of language acquisition. Further, the exact structure of the narrative form may differ across languages, and as such, Deaf adults who sign American Sign Language may include different specific content in their memories. Experiment 1 compared the content and age of earliest and later personal memories across two groups: Deaf adults who had hearing parents, and hearing adults who had hearing parents. The results indicated few differences in content, and no difference in age of earliest memory across hearing status. This suggests that language may not be a crucial factor in the onset of autobiographical memory. In Experiment 2, I traced mother-child interactions across two different contexts (a memory task and picture book reading) over 10 months of early language-learning (15-24 months) in 2 mother-son dyads, one Deaf, conversing in American Sign Language (ASL), and one hearing, conversing in spoken English. Both mothers utilized strikingly similar styles, even though they were using different languages. Results are discussed in light of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic determinism, as well as educational implications for Deaf children. |
