Jenny Singleton

About

Jenny Singleton is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Stony Brook University. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989. Her research focuses on sign language acquisition, language socialization, and sign language disorders. As a faculty member, she contributes to the understanding of how sign languages are learned and socialized, and she is involved in related research and teaching within the department.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Linguistics
• Sociology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Communication
• Cognitive psychology
• Medicine
• Psychiatry
• Clinical psychology

Selected publications

• Sign Language Acquisition in Context

  Routledge eBooks · 2021 · 13 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  For many deaf children, acquiring a signed language occurs outside the home, in a school setting, and not from their parents. Often deaf children are not exposed to a signed language at all during the critical early years. While some family contexts support a deaf child creating their own form of signed communication – so-called homesign, for other families the child’s exposure to a signed language does not happen until later childhood, or even adolescence, or perhaps not at all. This creates un…

  PublisherDOI

• Acquisition of turn-taking in sign language conversations: An overview of language modality and turn structure

  Frontiers in Psychology · 2022 · 11 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  The task of transitioning from one interlocutor to another in conversation - taking turns - is a complex social process, but typically transpires rapidly and without incident in conversations between adults. Cross-linguistic similarities in turn timing and turn structure have led researchers to suggest that it is a core antecedent to human language and a primary driver of an innate "interaction engine." This review focuses on studies that have tested the extent of turn timing and turn structure…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Sign language socialization and participant frameworks in three indigenous Mesoamerican communities

  Research on Children and Social Interaction · 2023-12-21 · 9 citations

  articleSenior author

  This article provides a cross-cultural study of language socialization through sign language in three indigenous Mesoamerican communities. We explore whether child signers are socialized to use visual communicative practices as participants or observers. We present four conversations that illustrate how child signers are socialized into these practices. Child signers in our study acquire appropriate visual practices, even when they are primarily observers. But sign language socialization practic…

  PublisherDOI

• A case study of the American Sign Language patterns of a natively-exposed Deaf autistic signer

  Language Acquisition · 2023-12-19 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Research on the acquisition of American Sign Language (ASL) by deaf autistic children has documented similarities to the linguistic profile of hearing children on the autism spectrum and has identified sign-specific phenomena that could serve as clinical markers of autism in the deaf population. However, the acquisition of a signed language by deaf autistic individuals whose language use appears to be at age-level is not well documented. Here we present a case study of ASL use by a Deaf autistic…

  PublisherDOI

• The socialization of modality capital in sign language ecologies: A classroom example

  Frontiers in Psychology · 2022-10-28 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Gaze behavior is an important component of children’s language, cognitive, and sociocultural development. This is especially true for young deaf children acquiring a signed language—if they are not looking at the language model, they are not getting linguistic input. Deaf caregivers engage their deaf infants and toddlers using visual and tactile strategies to draw in, support, and promote their child’s visual attention; we argue that these caregiver actions create a developmental niche that esta…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Doctoral Dissertation Research: Word Learning in a Signed Language and Its Relationship to Spoken Word Learning in Hearing Non-Signing Adults

  NSF · $19k · 2017–2019

Frequent coauthors

• David Quinto‐Pozos

  The University of Texas at Austin

  15 shared

• David Martinez

  University of Maryland, College Park

  14 shared

• Peter C. Hauser

  Rochester Institute of Technology

  9 shared

• Wendy A. Rogers

  9 shared

• Tracy L. Mitzner

  7 shared

• Anjali J. Forber‐Pratt

  4 shared

• Susan Goldin‐Meadow

  3 shared

• Elena T. Gonzalez

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  3 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  1989

Similar researchers at Stony Brook University

• Arthur Samuelh-60
• Richard K. Larsonh-28
• Marie K. Huffmanh-19