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Recent research on signed as well as spoken language shows that the iconic features of the target language might play a role in language development. Here, we ask further whether different types of iconic depictions modulate children’s preferences for certain types of sign-referent links during vocabulary development in sign language. Results from a picture description task indicate that lexical signs with 2 possible variants are used in different proportions by deaf signers from different age groups. While preschool and school-age children favored variants representing actions associated with their referent (eg, a writing hand for the sign PEN), adults preferred variants representing the perceptual features of those objects (eg, upward index finger representing a thin, elongated object for the sign PEN). Deaf parents interacting with their children, however, used action-and perceptual-based variants in equal proportion …