Most typically developing children learn language with astonishing ease. Already by about four to six months, infants start to babble their first speech sounds. At about ten to twelve months they say their first-ever words, and at about two years they produce their first-ever sentences, which are usually composed of only two words. From then on, their language develops very rapidly so that by about four to five years of age they start forming sentences that sound almost adult-like.
This fascinating ability has also been observed in deaf children learning sign languages, if they have access to sign language from birth. These children reach the same milestones at similar ages as hearing children. For instance, they start to babble with their hands at around the same age as speaking children begin to babble out loud, and they start to name everyday objects like “ball” in sign language around their first birthday.
Deaf children born to hearing parents face communicative difficulties
However, very few deaf children are born to deaf parents and thus have access to sign language right away. A large group of deaf children (90-95% of the deaf population) are born to hearing parents. Consequently, the communication between deaf children and their hearing parents is subjected to some challenges, as the deaf children themselves cannot hear the spoken language surrounding them, and their hearing parents, unlike deaf parents, often cannot communicate with them in sign language, unless they take up sign language courses
These communicative difficulties tend to be somewhat alleviated as these children enroll at a school for the Deaf, which is typically around the age of four to six. In many non-developed countries, such as Turkey, sign language is often not a part of the curriculum. Nevertheless, these children do get to know other deaf children, some of whom were born to deaf parents. As a result, children born to hearing parents can now learn sign language by interacting with their peers who have already learned sign language from their deaf parents. This marks the start of their natural exposure to sign language. Of course, compared to deaf children born to deaf parents, deaf children born to hearing parents have delayed access to sign language. Also, their access to sign language is less consistent, as they receive their input from their peers, who themselves may have different levels of sign language proficiency.
As a result, these communicative difficulties that deaf children from hearing parents face tend to influence their language development, even after the point at which they go to school and start learning sign language. For instance, late sign language learners tend to form simpler sentences compared to early learners of the same age, which shows that their grammar and vocabulary is affected by the later onset of their journey towards learning sign language.
Early interventions may stimulate language development
In an effort to prevent these communicative difficulties experienced by deaf children from hearing parents, many developed countries offer early interventions upon diagnosis of a hearing impairment after birth, which focus on the child’s development of speech abilities. Examples are the use of hearing aids such as cochlear implants and/or getting speech therapy. These interventions can enable deaf children to interact with the hearing world and can decrease the communicative difficulties they face.
Although some children benefit greatly from these interventions, for other children, especially the ones with severe hearing loss, hearing aids and speech therapy may not help them enough to acquire spoken language well enough. In these instances, an alternative approach to prevent communicative difficulties is to enroll a child in bilingual intervention programs and education, which is focused on both learning sign language and participating in speech therapy. This approach scaffolds language development for all deaf children – both early and late signers – and fosters overall development (including that of cognitive and social abilities) by allowing deaf children to interact with their deaf peers. Unfortunately, to date only very few countries, one of which is Brazil, have developed bilingual education for deaf children.
This is because, historically, it was thought that such bilingual approaches would hinder the spoken language development of deaf children. Recent research has shown that this is not the case. There are many cognitive and social advantages associated with being exposed to sign and spoken languages simultaneously. These advantages are not only evident in the developing child but also reveal themselves in adulthood when deaf children who have grown up with both sign and spoken languages are able to move around in both the deaf and hearing community equally easily.
The way forward towards equal opportunities
These results suggest that bilingual education is the future of intervention policies for deaf children. Countries can provide equal opportunities for deaf children by offering bilingual education. But to reach this goal, many countries still need to take a small but monumental first step, that is to recognize sign language as a country’s official language. Worldwide, only 41 countries have recognized sign language as an official and legal language, with examples being Belgium, Papua New Guinea and Uganda. More countries are following in their footsteps, however. For example, last year Sign Language of The Netherlands (Nederlandse Gebarentaal, NGT) became one of the official and legal languages of The Netherlands. This brings hope for the full recognition of sign languages in education and society in all countries of the world. And once a country has recognized sign language as an official language, the way towards equal opportunities for deaf children is opened.
Read further:
- Emmorey, K. (2002). Language, cognition, and the brain: Insights from sign language research. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- Hall, M. L., Hall, W. C., & Caselli, N. K. (2019). Deaf children need language, not (just) speech. First Language, 39(4), 367-395.
- İlkbaşaran, D. (2015). Literacies, Mobilities and Agencies of Deaf Youth in Turkey: Constraints and Opportunities in the 21st Century. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of California, San Diego.
- Karadöller, D.Z., Sümer, B. & Özyürek, A. (2017). Effects of delayed language exposure on spatial language acquisition by signing children and adults. In G. Gunzelmann, A. Howes, T. Tenbrink & E. Davelaar (Eds.), Proceedings of the 39th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2017) (pp. 2372-2376). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
- Mayberry, R. I. (1993). First-language acquisition after childhood differs from second-language acquisition: The case of American Sign Language. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 36, 1258-1270.
- Mitchell, R. E., & Karchmer, M. (2004). Chasing the mythical ten percent: Parental hearing status of deaf and hard of hearing students in the United States. Sign Language Studies, 4(2), 138-163.
Writer: Dilay Z. Karadöller
Editor: Franziska Schulz
Dutch translation: Caitlin Decuyper
German translation: Bianca Thomsen
Final editing: Eva Poort
