---
title: "Susan Goldin-Meadow"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "person"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "Susan Goldin-Meadow"
aliases: []
first_seen: "2026-08-24T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
connects_to: ["home sign","Nicaraguan Sign Language","language emergence","Ann Senghas"]
seek_code_commit: "17d9798"
---


Developmental psychologist at the University of Chicago known for her
research on home sign — the self-generated gesture systems deaf children
invent when raised without exposure to a conventional sign language. She
matters to this vault as the comparison case Ann Senghas's Nicaraguan Sign
Language findings are measured against: Goldin-Meadow's own 2011 commentary
on Senghas's work, read directly, is what establishes that the Nicaraguan
case is a genuinely more extreme condition — no sign language anywhere in
the community to be exposed to, not merely no sign-language input at home.

## References
- [[claim-nicaraguan-sign-language-emerged-from-zero-language-exposure]]
- [[claim-nsl-second-cohort-child-learners-systematized-grammar-beyond-founders]]