Ann Senghas

Ann Senghas is an American developmental psychologist known for her research on the emergence and development of Nicaraguan Sign Language. Senghas is Professor of Psychology at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she directs the Language Acquisition and Development Research Laboratory.

Senghas is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. She was a Frontiers of Science Fellow of the National Academies of Sciences (2000),

Biography Senghas pursued her undergraduate degree at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, graduating cum laude in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts in French Studies. She continued her education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning her Ph.D. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences in 1995 under the mentorship of Steven Pinker.

Since 1999, Senghas has worked at Barnard College as a Tow associate professor, department chair, and director of the Language Acquisition and Development Research Laboratory focusing on language emergence and change. Under her directorship, the LADR lab has been supported by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders since 2002. Her studies have offered insights into the cognitive and social underpinnings of language creation and evolution.

Senghas's research centers on longitudinal studies of Nicaraguan Sign Language, tracking its development over many years. Nicaraguan Sign Language started to form in the 1970s when deaf children were first brought together in educational settings.

A finding of her research is that children were instrumental in evolving Nicaraguan Sign Language into a structured language. Her studies investigate how users created consistent handshapes, movements, and locations to establish unique linguistic units. She has discovered patterns in how Nicaraguan Sign Language users convey meaning through various combinations of these elements, similar to how spoken languages utilize sounds to create words. This research has expanded the comprehension of how phonological systems can emerge in newly developed languages.

Senghas’s results contribute to discussions about the origins of language, providing support for the idea that languages can develop spontaneously when conditions are favorable. Furthermore, they contest conventional theories of language acquisition by demonstrating that children actively construct linguistic structure rather than just passively absorbing it. Her studies also have relevance for comprehending language disorders, as they illuminate the processes involved in language development and its evolution.

Representative publications

Senghas, A., & Coppola, M. (2001). Children creating language: How Nicaraguan Sign Language acquired a spatial grammar. Psychological Science, 12(4), 323-328. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00359 Senghas, A. (2003). Intergenerational influence and ontogenetic development in the emergence of spatial grammar in Nicaraguan Sign Language. Cognitive Development, 18(4), 511-531. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2003.09.006 Senghas, A., Kita, S., & Ozyurek, A. (2004). Children creating core properties of language: Evidence from an emerging sign language in Nicaragua. Science, 305(5691), 1779-1782. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1100199 Pyers, J. E., & Senghas, A. (2009). Language promotes false-belief understanding: Evidence from learners of a new sign language. Psychological science, 20(7), 805-812. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02377.x Pyers, J. E., Shusterman, A., Senghas, A., Spelke, E. S., & Emmorey, K. (2010). Evidence from an emerging sign language reveals that language supports spatial cognition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(27), 12116-12120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0914044107