Early sign language acquisition in children and gorillas: vocabulary content and sign iconicity

Abstract

The early sign language acquisition of 22 young children of deaf parents and 2 lowland gorillas was examined in several longitudinal studies. Both the children and gorillas acquired numerous signs during these investigations, with the children typically learning new signs more rapidly than the gorillas. Comparisons of the content of the children's and gorillas' early sign lexicons revealed a pattern of considerable resemblance between the species. Signs classified as iconic or pantomimic constituted the majority of the gorillas' initial 10-sign lexicons, whereas most of the children's first-learned signs were non-iconic. Overall, there were many similarities between the species in early sign vocabulary development.