In nations like the United States of America, it is estimated that 96% of deaf children are born to parents who have the ability to hear whereas, only 4% are born to parents who are deaf. The deaf children born to deaf parents are usually exposed to sign language at an early stage in their lives. However, the deaf children who are born to parents who can hear, and do not have any history whatsoever of using sign language, usually undergo numerous challenges because their parents are normally in a state of ignorance about fundamental language matters. As a result, these parents mostly turn to friends, medical professionals, religious leaders or their family for helpful guidance. In most cases, these people may be either under-informed or mis- informed about the language needs of deaf children (Humphries 32).
In most cases, these hearing parents are usually advised to use cochlear implants as opposed to teaching their children sign language. Many people believe that sign language reduces the deaf child’s zeal to learn spoken language, and therefore they result to hearing aids and visual lip reading. However, the effectiveness of the cochlear implants has been seen to start showing after a long time. The deaf children who were either born deaf or became deaf during the first few years of their lives usually undergo minimally or no success in language acquisition. The child’s parents mostly result to sign language at a later stage in the child’s life. Consequently, the child is unable to gain a fluent mastery of both spoken and sign language as children are known to grasp language during their early critical period (Humphries 33).
The resultant effects of delayed learning of language for deaf children have been quite detrimental. These children suffer from psychosocial because their language needs have not been met. Consequently, these children fall into depression, acquire behavioral problems, social disorders, juvenile delinquencies and at a later stage in their lives they engage in criminal activities. Apart from these social challenges, deaf children whose need to communicate has been hampered with during their first critical years of communication usually experience a delay in the development of their cognitive skills and the interconnected linguistic ability. Such children experience a lot of challenges in verbal memory organization, mastery of numeracy and literacy and high-order cognitive processing and the theory of the mind .
It is, therefore important for deaf children to be exposed to sign language at an early stage in their lives the same way hearing children are exposed to spoken language from birth. The reason is that when a child is born deaf, it becomes impossible for a child to acquire naturally spoken language as hearing children do. Sign language is visual-spatial languages that possess their own grammatical and linguistic structure. It is delivered down from one age band to another and it is independent of spoken language. Studies have shown that deaf children can learn sign language more naturally rather than spoken language that they learn quite slowly even with the help of hearing aids or visual lip-reading. The acquisition of sign language is done in a visual manner as opposed to spoken language that is acquired in an auditory way (Tomaszewski 67).
More proof of the importance to expose deaf children to sing language at a tender age is the systematic and regular manner in which deaf children who are born to deaf parents learn sign language. These deaf children are seen to be as productive and possess the same linguistic progression in their language as that of hearing children. Acquisition and growth of sign language vocabulary has proved to be faster than that of spoken language, with the first signs of sign language appearing at 2 to 3 months earlier than those of the first words in both hearing, and deaf children. At an age of 18 months, deaf children are seen to have a vocabulary of 85 signs whereas children exposed to spoken language utter their first words at that age (Tomaszewski 68).
The early emergence of sign language is attributed to the prior neuromuscular development of the system followed by the development of the systems used for speaking. In all its stages, sign language precedes spoken language. However, longitudinal studies of sign language show that in spite of the differences in conveying of sign and spoken language, language development is the same in the deaf child exposed to sign language from birth, and as in the hearing child exposed to spoken language from birth (Tomaszewski 69).
Since all learning depends on language, it is important to emphasize the need for early exposure of children to sign language. The better the language a child has, the broader the variety of their mental concepts and the more they will have the ability to learn in school. Children are said to have an innate ability for language development. Thus, they are said to have a language acquisition device that actively grasps language until the children reach the age of 5. During this age, children understand the information, process it in their minds and produce sentences. The Language acquisition device then begins to close down as the children approach puberty and thus the language the children will fundamentally speak will be based on what they learned from age 5 and below. For deaf children, therefore, it is important to expose them to sign language from birth to avoid communication challenges from occurring (Deaf Children Australia 2).
In the case of deaf children who are born to hearing parents who are not aware of either sign language or the language community, the deaf children are usually not exposed to language input until they arrive in school. Here, they are advantaged as sign language is used as a primary means of communication. Although such situation exposes children to minimal sign language, the deaf children come up with a linguistic system of their own based on unplanned for gestures referred to as home signs. As such, the concept of inborn linguistic capacity emerges and if exposed to consistent sign language in school, deaf children who are born to hearing parents can have proper language development (Tomaszewski 69).
The assumption, therefore that language is associated with speech should also be addressed when it comes to language development in deaf children. Language refers to the words, structures; thoughts and concepts individuals have in their minds whereas speech is one way in which we communicate. Hearing loss therefore in any child affects both the child’s speech and language development. However, language and the brain have a complementing flexibility with respect to the way in which language is conveyed. Hence, both spoken and sign language can nurture brain development. Early exposure to a first language in a deaf child’s early stages of life is also important so as to develop fragile areas in a language such as complex morphology like in verb agreement. The first exposure to both spoken and sign language in deaf children increases their chances of being bilingual, and thus they can comprehend both spoken and sign language
There are various ways in which caregivers and people who are surrounding deaf children can ensure they are exposed to both sign and spoken language during their critical stage and age of language development. Caregivers and other people surrounding the deaf children should talk, sign and carry out conversations consistently so that the deaf children can see and hear sentences and words repeatedly. Meaningful interaction with the deaf children in a consistent manner also improves their language acquisition. These interactions should make sense to the child. Frequent extending of the child’s language by questioning commenting and modeling new words and phrases also improves the cognitive development of deaf children. Once the child starts showing signs of both sign and spoken language, the caregivers and other people within the child’s surrounding should encourage the child’s attempts at using the language (Deaf Children Australia 3).
When developing the language of a deaf child, it is important to consider the factors that affect the child’s learning of the language. These factors may include the age in which the hearing loss began. The children who are born deaf or who become deaf after birth go through a lot of difficulty in their acquisition of language as opposed to those who lost their hearing during their early childhood. The situation is so because the latter had started the process of understanding about language and communication. A deaf child’s degree of hearing loss also affects their language development. The greater the hearing loss, the more effect it has on the development of language. The superiority and extent of language input has an impact on language development. The better the quality and the more communication the deaf child is engaged in, the more consistent information the child can absorb about language. Early diagnosis and early intervention also contribute to proper language development.
Works Cited
Bowe, Frank. "Language Development in Deaf Children." Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education (1998): 73-74.
Deaf Children Australia. "Language Development and Deaf Children." Deaf Children Australia (2012): 2-3.
Tom Humphries, Poorna Kushalnagar, Gaurav Mathur, Donna Jo Napoli, Carol Padden,. Ensuring Language Acquisition for Deaf Children: What Linguist can do (Language and Public Policy): 32-33.
Tomaszewski, Poitr. "Sign Language and Development in Young Deaf Children." Psychology of Language and Communication (2001): 67-70.
