ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of gesture creation in deaf children has powerful implications for the nature-nurture question with respect to language acquisition. The phenomenon of gesture development in deaf children lacking a conventional language model has been replicated by an independent investigator studying deaf children of hearing parents in Australia. The lexicalization hypothesis essentially boils down to a restatement of the underlying structure hypothesis: Aspects of change-of-location situations are less likely to be lexicalized than aspects of change-of-state situations because there are four change-of-location aspects competing for lexicalization but only three change-of-state aspects. Once isolated, the children's gestures were recorded in terms of the three dimensions commonly used to describe signs in American Sign Language (ASL): the shape of the hand, the location of the hands with respect to places on the body or in space, and the movement of the hand or body.
