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Language acquisition by deaf children

Role of the environment[edit]

Deaf-children born to deaf parents[edit] Some deaf children’s lag in language development and subsequent struggles in school are not solely attributable to deafness. Deaf children born to deaf parents acquire sign language just as quickly and with as much effort as hearing children acquire spoken language. Although they may communicate less frequently than their hearing counterparts, deaf mothers’ language is made more accessible and thereby more salient to their children. Furthermore, deaf children born to deaf parents surpass those born to hearing parents in regards to academic performance.

Furthermore, language development in Deaf children born to Deaf parents (DoDP) who acquire sign language parallels early spoken language development in typical hearing children. Deaf children produce babble and mistakes like a hearing child would. Producing the sign for mother is commonly mistaken for DoDP with the misuse of handshape, similar to how a hearing child might mispronounce a word. DoDP have higher average lexical size than hearing children before the age of 18 months. Although, hearing children catch up at around 24 months. DoDP have a sudden increase in acquiring new vocabulary when lexical size reaches 50 at 16 to 19 months of age, compared to hearing children a larger proportion of action, adverb and personal social words are learnt. Development of pointing, that occurs in all typical developing children, becomes beneficial and advantageous to DoDP because this gesture soon becomes part of the linguistic system in Sign Language. Around 17 to 20 months pointing takes on the role of pronouns for DoDP. Signs in Sign Language appear slightly earlier than vocal words in DoDP, suggesting earlier communication development with acquisition of Sign Language.

Literacy development for DoDP is closely related to loan signs and fingerspelling in American Sign Language (ASL). Fingerspelling is an equalvilant representation to the manual English alphabet. Loan signs are clusters of common affixes or spelt words that are signed fast that they become a sign in itself, such as –tion, - ness or car. Both these attributes of ASL help replace the auditory phonological input that DoDP lack. Strong correlation between fingerspelling skills and English reading vocabulary have been found for DoDP.

Deaf children born to hearing parents[edit] More than 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents. Due to an entirely different view and experience of the world, this often leads to difficulties in parent-child communication. Signals from the environment help children create a language system. A child must be inserted into the language-learning situation equipped with certain propensities in order to be able to take advantage of ‘hints’ offered by the environment. Such environmental cues include other people pointing at things, nodding or shaking their heads, or performing certain actions that show intentions and meaning. '

Deaf children born to hearing parents (DoHP) usually have restricted or late onset exposure to Sign Language. Therefore, they are highly likely to miss the critical period for acquisition of a first language. Due to this late exposure results show very severe language-delayed. Although, adults who lost their hearing in late childhood become fluent in sign language as their second language. Suggesting that there is a critical period for first language but not second language fluency.

Simultaneous Communication

Simultaneous Communication (SimCom) is the method of signing sign language and speaking a spoken language at the same time. Unfortunately, due to the difference in grammar and syntax that sign languages and spoken languages have, when SimCom is produced the grammar, syntax and word order of the spoken language is used in the signing of the sign language. Therefore, eroding the grammar and syntax of the sign language. In the United States, SimCom environments have decreased by 15% since 2008. Deaf children learning through the SimCom Model have severely low vocabulary development compared to DoDP and hearing children. SimCom is commonly used for oral-environments with Deaf children with hearing aids or cochlear implants. The use of speech when signing helps the Deaf child become exposed to the auditory cues in the semantics and syntax of the spoken language, where visual support is also provided. Vocabulary development and cognitive strategies for vocabulary learning is severely delayed from this input. DoHP usually use SimCom at the beginning stages of their Deaf child's life, and as the child gets older and the model then turns into just spoken language. Hearing parents usually do not supply signing input sufficient enough for optimal language development. However, SimCom does provide better vocabulary development then Deaf children only exposed to spoken language.

Attention

Deaf children are better at attending to and processing information in their peripheral vision than hearing peers due to their visual communication. Although, heightened peripheral vision can hinder attention when placed in a classroom setting, especially if focused attention on a teacher or interpreter is required. Distractions from peripheral vision can be problematic. Deaf children were found to equal hearing individuals in free recall (recalling a list in any other) memory skill. However, in visuospatial recall (items presented in a visual array) Deaf children perform better. When items are shown and then disappeared before the next item appears (are in movement), hearing children perform better. Deaf children seem to perform best when information is presented in static visuospatial format. Results are surprising considering the movement utilized in sign language. This could be an important aspect in how information should be relayed when concerning Deaf education. Deaf children may have trouble developing working memory when informational load is too overwhelming. Suggestion of rehearsing and performing nursery rhymes, can improve Deaf children's sequential working memory skills and language processing skills.