Language exposure for deaf children

Language exposure is the act of making language readily available to children during the critical early years of language learning. The theory of the critical period for language exposure states that there is a certain window where children are able to and must learn a first language, or multiple languages.[1] This exposure allows the brain to fully develop linguistic skills and leads to language fluency and comprehension later in life.[1][2] Much of the research on language exposure, the critical period, and language acquisition are based on spoken languages and children who are hearing. In reality, these same ideas translate to deaf children as well. Language exposure is essential during the critical period for language acquisition for all children. Deaf children tend to face more hardships when it comes to ensuring that they will receive this input of language in formative years.[3]

Language and development

American Sign Language has only fairly recently been recognized as an official language. This recognition came about with research done around the 1960s[4] that proved that signed languages are in fact technical languages, with structure and grammar to match that of spoken language.[2] In fact, manual and verbal languages are all indeed full languages, with common properties like syntax and grammar. They both also use the same area of the brain in the left hemisphere. For years it was known that the left hemisphere dealt with speech, but now it is specifically the details of language organization that seem to be processed here.[5]

The deaf brain develops at the same rate as the hearing brain when learning language. Deaf babies babble on their hands the same way hearing babies babble with their mouths,[5] and they acquire language in the same timeframe. This is true neurologically and behaviorally. In both areas they hit the same milestones around the same times.

Developments other than linguistic development, such as cognitive developments, actually develop independent of whether or not the deaf child is exposed to, learns, or develops language at all. Deaf children's bodies and minds develop normally outside of language ability.[6] Unfortunately, the lack of exposure to language, although independent of other developmental processes, is a problem for many deaf children, as language development is still crucial. Deaf children are an at-risk population for not receiving language during the critical period for learning language. This can be due to schooling options, their parent's inability to communicate, or lack of continuous and unlimited exposure to sign language.[3] The cognitive, neurological, and regular development of children who happen to be deaf is completely normal. It is only that their access to an input language that is much more limited in comparison to a child learning a spoken language. This is due to the mainly hearing world we live in. However, if deaf children do receive that language acquisition during the critical period of language learning in the way that they're supposed to, the sensory loss of not being able to hear is not debilitating or harmful to their development.[6]

Providing language exposure

From birth

About 90% of deaf or hard of hearing children are born to hearing parents. Only 10% are born to deaf parents.[7] Therefore only about 10% of deaf children have language exposure in their natural form of communication, without restriction, from birth. When a child is born deaf or hard of hearing, there are newborn hearing screening practices that inform the parents whether or not the baby has hearing loss within the first few weeks after the baby is born. If a baby is diagnosed with hearing loss, hospitals usually provide access to a team that includes primary care physicians, audiologists, and other health care providers to help the family decide which path is most appropriate for their family or their child to ensure that the baby develops normally with language. However, some physicians report that they aren't confident about informing the parents of children who have hearing loss about the potential choices for their child[8] other than just referring them to an audiologist. Based on that, there seems to be a lack of knowledge and education about the Deaf community for physicians and families alike.

Cochlear implants and exposure

Many doctors recommend families with babies diagnosed with hearing loss see an audiologist. On one hand, people view this referral as an attempt to fix the pathological problem of hearing loss. On the other hand, some people view the referral and denial of allowing the baby to stay deaf as an intrusion on the child's potential life in the Deaf community. This is because audiologists specializes in the perception of sound. This could lead to ignoring the possibility that the child just may need someone to help them thrive in the Deaf community. Recently, there has been heated debate over research on cochlear implants. This surgery is a common recommendation for children born deaf or hard of hearing, in order to attempt to get the child to hear, understand, and use spoken language rather than sign language. The debate mostly centers around the view that deafness is a problem that needs to be fixed. Members of the Deaf community, proud of their culture and language, see this as an insult and excessive means of forced conformity to the hearing world. Others view it as a very real possibility to open doors and give children the opportunity to function with more accessibility in a hearing society. In regards to language exposure, there has been recent research[9] showing that when given a cochlear implant, a child's use of only spoken language leads to higher intellectual development results in comparison to children who mix spoken language learning with sign language as well. However, this research[9] does note that they haven't studied children of parents who use sign language fluently, and give their child unlimited exposure to sign.

Grade school

Unlimited language exposure includes having education options available in one's own language. The Americans with Disabilities Act states that a public education should be provided to each child with a disability in the "least restrictive environment" for them.[10] As a broad statement, this is up to interpretation. Often this means that children with hearing loss get access to public schools with an interpreter. The qualifications of this interpreter are required, but since they are not stated specifically, usually K-12 interpreters aren't the most qualified to be teaching a child, as those qualifications mean those interpreters are more expensive for schools to provide. Additionally, going to a public school that is a majority of hearing students isolates the deaf child and does not provide unlimited access to their language. There are few schools that teach all in sign language, such as The Learning Center for the Deaf in Framingham, MA. Other deaf schools may teach in an oralist method, prohibiting signing and focusing only on speech, a total communication method, with a pidgin sign language accompanying a speaking teacher, also known as simultaneous communication, and a bilingual approach that includes both sign and speech, but in a separated way.[11]

Later language ability

There has been other research[1] done about fluent sign language users and their ability to pick up spoken language later in life. The results show that sign language as a first language produces equal language skills later on in life, whether it be reading, learning a second language, or basic linguistic skills, as long as it is learned in the critical period of language acquisition.

Additionally, learning sign language alongside another language has been proven to produce the same development as a bilingual child who learns two spoken languages.[12] This furthers the idea that exposing a child to sign language is comparable to exposing a child to spoken language. Again, the criteria for both of these languages being that they are learned during the critical period and with full exposure to learn the language fluently. When any language is learned in this way, language development is the same across the board.

Notes

1. Mayberry, Rachel I. "Early language acquisition and adult language ability: What sign language reveals about the critical." The Oxford handbook of deaf studies, language, and education 2 (2010): 281.
2. Meier, Richard P. "Language acquisition by deaf children." American Scientist 79.1 (1991): 60-70.
3. Humphries, Tom, et al. "Ensuring language acquisition for deaf children: What linguists can do." Language 90.2 (2014): e31-e52.
4. Henry, Sarah Hamrick, Laura Jacobi, Patrick Oberholtzer, Elizabeth. "LibGuides. Sign Language. ASL: Academic acceptance and official recognition". libguides.gallaudet.edu. Retrieved 2017-07-24.
5. Petitto, Laura Ann, et al. "Speech-like cerebral activity in profoundly deaf people processing signed languages: implications for the neural basis of human language." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97.25 (2000): 13961-13966.
6. Mayberry, Rachel I. "Cognitive development in deaf children: The interface of language and perception in neuropsychology." Handbook of neuropsychology 8.Part II (2002): 71-107.
7. "Quick Statistics About Hearing". NIDCD. 2015-08-18. Retrieved 2017-07-27.
8. Moeller, Mary Pat; Karl R. White; and Lenore Shisler. 2006. Primary care physicians' knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to newborn hearing screening. Pediatrics 118.1357–70.
9. White, Karl R.; Cooper, Louis Z. (2017-07-01). "Opportunities and Shared Decision-Making to Help Children Who Are Deaf to Communicate". Pediatrics. 140 (1): e20171287. doi:10.1542/peds.2017-1287. ISSN 0031-4005.
10. "A Guide to Disability Rights Laws". www.ada.gov. Retrieved 2017-08-06.
11. Gascon-Ramos, M. (2008). Wellbeing in deaf children: A framework of understanding. Educational & Child Psychology, 25(2), 57-71.
12. Petitto, Laura Ann, et al. "Bilingual signed and spoken language acquisition from birth: Implications for the mechanisms underlying early bilingual language acquisition." Journal of child language 28.2 (2001): 453-496.