Characteristics of Deaf Learners

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Marschark ◽  
Harry G. Lang ◽  
John A. Albertini
Keyword(s):  
Deaf Child ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Basic Information ◽  
Educational Placement ◽  
Considerable Evidence ◽  
Educational Methods ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
New Information ◽  
Hearing Children ◽  
Educational Futures

In the interests of equality, sensitivity, and political correctness, it is often claimed that deaf and hearing individuals are exactly the same, except for their hearing losses. To some extent, this attitude may reflect an understandable swing of the pendulum after years of society’s treating deaf individuals as though they are deficient. At the same time, we believe that there is now considerable evidence to indicate that the experiences, knowledge, and strategies of deaf individuals often differ in some ways from those of hearing individuals, and that such differences are likely to influence learning. At one level, the question of differences between deaf and hearing learners is a statistical, descriptive one. This chapter provides some basic information in that regard, including demographics, types and causes of hearing loss, and issues relating to educational placement. We discuss populations and their characteristics. At another level, however, the question of differences between deaf and hearing learners is about individuals. There, the relevant issues are more empirical than descriptive, and an interdisciplinary perspective becomes important. If deaf and hearing students were the same except for their hearing losses, then we would not have to worry about special educational methods, issues of social integration, or whether a local public school or special school program would be better for a deaf child. If deaf and hearing children were the same except for their hearing losses, we could put them in the same classrooms and assume the same background knowledge, social skills, and educational futures. The problem is that life is rarely so simple. By virtue of their hearing losses, many deaf children (and particularly those with hearing parents) have somewhat different early environments than hearing children. Frequently, those children do not have access to the language of their families, and their parents are not fully prepared for handling the special needs of a child who cannot hear. With differences in communication, early social interactions, and ways of acquiring new information, it seems likely that deaf children will have some characteristics that distinguish them from hearing children.

Psychosocial Development of Hard-of-Hearing Preschool Children

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Jakhelln Laugen
Keyword(s):  
Early Intervention ◽  
Psychosocial Development ◽  
Hard Of Hearing ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Deaf Child ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Child Research ◽  
Universal Newborn Hearing Screening ◽  
Newborn Hearing ◽  
Hearing Children

In some respects, hard-of-hearing children experience the same difficulties as deaf children, whereas other challenges might be easier or more difficult to handle for the hard-of-hearing child than it would be for the deaf child. Research has revealed great variability in the language, academic, and psychosocial outcomes of hard-of-hearing children. Universal newborn hearing screening enables early identification and intervention for this group, which traditionally has been diagnosed rather late; however, best practices regarding the scope and content of early intervention have not yet been sufficiently described for hard-of-hearing children. This chapter summarizes the current knowledge concerning psychosocial development in hard-of-hearing children. Risk and protective factors, and their implications for early intervention, are discussed with a special emphasis on preschoolers.

Education Begins at Home

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Marschark ◽  
Harry G. Lang ◽  
John A. Albertini
Keyword(s):  
Personal Growth ◽  
Bone Conduction ◽  
Deaf Child ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Medical Problems ◽  
Implicit Instruction ◽  
Early Access ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
Mother’S Voice

Parents, siblings, and others provide young children with a context in which development occurs and supports and promotes early learning. In this chapter, we consider the roles of various individuals and early interventions in social, language, and cognitive development before children enter school. Because most deaf children are born to nonsigning, hearing parents, communication in the home is given special consideration, particularly with regard to the kinds of information and experience that contribute to those domains. We also consider the importance of implicit instruction in relation to fostering educational readiness and the potential effects on long-term academic achievement and personal growth. Parents will encounter both opportunities and challenges in raising a deaf child, and research has demonstrated a variety of ways in which they can optimize their child’s development. Therefore, we devote some space to describing the field on which early development takes place. Most important, we will see the importance of deaf children having early access to language, social interaction, and experiential diversity. Because most cases of deafness are not hereditary, many deaf children will have congenital or early-onset hearing losses that are totally unexpected (and usually unrecognized for some time) by their parents. Some of those children will be considered at risk at birth because of the maternal, fetal, or neonatal medical problems that contributed to their hearing losses. Beyond the consequences of initial medical difficulties, factors related to prenatal or postnatal hearing loss may well influence the quantity or quality of interactions the infant has with others in the environment during the first few months. These earliest influences, and their effects, can have ever-widening consequences for development over the first months and years of life. Even before birth, sounds perceived from within the womb can influence the course of development. Early in the last trimester of pregnancy, a fetus will rotate and adopt a new position with the head against the mother’s pelvis. Most fetuses already have considerable responsiveness to sound at this point and can perceive the mother’s voice and heartbeat through bone conduction (Als et al., 1979).

What We Can Learn From Hearing Parents of Deaf Children

2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Flaherty
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Deaf Child ◽  
Deaf Education ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Deaf Community ◽  
Life Stages ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
Language Technologies ◽  
Depth Interviews

Hearing parents of deaf children face stresses and demands related to parenting a deaf child, including difficult choices about language, technologies, education and identity for their children (Marschark, 1997). To date, few researchers have discussed the unique challenges faced by this group. Through a series of semistructured, in-depth interviews with 18 parents, this study investigated the experiences of hearing parents of deaf children spanning various life stages. A phenomenological approach identified 5 themes most pertinent to understanding their experiences. Each theme offers insight, particularly for professionals, into the distinctive issues that might arise at the time of diagnosis of deafness and reveals the challenges hearing parents face when confronted with a barrage of decisions, including choice of oral or sign language, mainstream or special deaf education, and identity with the hearing or Deaf community. The central message from this work is to inform hearing parents of deaf children and professionals working with these parents of the likely challenges that they may face.

Aspecten in de Gebarentaalontwikkeling van Dove Kinderen van Dove en Horende Ouders

1995 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 61-69
Author(s):  
Carola Rooijmans
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Deaf Child ◽  
Observational Research ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Sign Languages ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
Deaf Parents ◽  
School For The Deaf ◽  
Mean Length Of Utterance

Research has shown parallels in the development of linguistic aspects found in sign languages and spoken languages when acquired as a first language (Newport & Meier, 1985). Deaf children of deaf parents (DCDP) are exposed to sign language early and are able to acquire it effortlessly. However, only about 10% of deaf children have deaf parents. More commonly the deaf child is born into a hearing family. These hearing parents usually use a communication system in which spoken words are supported simultaneously with signs. Such a sign system differs considerably from a sign language as it is not a natural language. Deaf children of hearing parents (DCHP) come into contact with sign language when they go to a school for the deaf. Research indicates that DCHP do acquire sign language structures, but this acquisition is delayed (Knoors, 1992). In this study a description of the development of morpho-syntactic and lexical aspects of the Sign Language of the Netherlands is given. The sign language production of three DCDP is analysed every six months from 1;0 to 3;6. Furthermore, the sign language production of three DCHP at the age of 3;6 is compared with that of the DCDP at the same age. The study includes both general measures such as Mean Length of Utterance and Type/Token Ratio and aspects specific to sign languages such as the use of POINTS in two sign combinations. Recommendations will be made with respect to the improvement of observational research on language acquision of DCDP and DCHP.

Categorization Behavior and Achievement in Deaf and Hearing Children

1967 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 241-250
Author(s):  
Toby Roslyn Silverman
Keyword(s):  
Reading Achievement ◽  
Special Class ◽  
Deaf Child ◽  
Achievement Test ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Language Performance ◽  
Hearing Children ◽  
Triple Mode ◽  
Achievement Levels

The Triple Mode Test of Categorization, developed to measure three major modes of categorization postulated by Vygotsky, and the Stanford Reading Achievement Test, were administered to 313 hearing children, 225 typically deaf children, and 21 special class deaf children. Modes of categorization were studied at different age and achievement levels. For the deaf children, superordinate and associate responding decreased with increasing age, while functional responding increased. For hearing children, increasing age was accompanied by increased superordinate responding, decreased associative responding, and stable functional responding. Other results are also discussed. The conclusions suggest that deficiencies in categorization behavior may contribute to deficient language performance in the deaf child.

scholarly journals Widening the lens: what the manual modality reveals about language, learning and cognition

2014 ◽  
Vol 369 (1651) ◽  
pp. 20130295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Goldin-Meadow
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Model ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
Sign Systems ◽  
Learning Contexts ◽  
Representational Format ◽  
Learning And Cognition ◽  
Hearing Children

The goal of this paper is to widen the lens on language to include the manual modality. We look first at hearing children who are acquiring language from a spoken language model and find that even before they use speech to communicate, they use gesture. Moreover, those gestures precede, and predict, the acquisition of structures in speech. We look next at deaf children whose hearing losses prevent them from using the oral modality, and whose hearing parents have not presented them with a language model in the manual modality. These children fall back on the manual modality to communicate and use gestures, which take on many of the forms and functions of natural language. These homemade gesture systems constitute the first step in the emergence of manual sign systems that are shared within deaf communities and are full-fledged languages. We end by widening the lens on sign language to include gesture and find that signers not only gesture, but they also use gesture in learning contexts just as speakers do. These findings suggest that what is key in gesture's ability to predict learning is its ability to add a second representational format to communication, rather than a second modality. Gesture can thus be language, assuming linguistic forms and functions, when other vehicles are not available; but when speech or sign is possible, gesture works along with language, providing an additional representational format that can promote learning.

A functional approach to self-points and self-reference in a deaf signing child and the (dis)continuity issue in child language

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-140
Author(s):  
Stéphanie Caët ◽  
Fanny Limousin ◽  
Aliyah Morgenstern
Keyword(s):  
American Sign Language ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
Deaf Child ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Language Abilities ◽  
Complex Syntax ◽  
Hearing Children ◽  
Reversal Errors ◽  
Self Reference

Abstract Based on her observation of two deaf children acquiring American Sign Language (ASL) who stopped pointing to persons at around 12 months and then produced reversal errors, Petitto (1987) argued that the discontinuous development of gestures and signs gives support to the hypothesis that language does not arise from general cognitive processes. However, since then, a large amount of studies on hearing children have suggested that early pointing was strongly related to later language abilities. In this paper, we follow up on these socio-cognitive approaches, with a dataset comparable to Petitto’s. We study the development of pointing and self-reference in a deaf child acquiring French Sign Language (LSF). We focus on self-reference rather than self-points, and suggest that, despite the apparent discontinuity in the production of self-points, there is continuity in the establishment of self-reference. In our data, the child produces self-points early on. She then uses predicates without overt subject before entering more complex syntax by combining predicates and self-points. The deaf signing child constructs self-reference similarly to speaking children and uses specific forms provided by her linguistic environment according to her cognitive, social and linguistic development.

Taalontwikkeling Door Middel Van Gebaren En Gebarentaal

1986 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 81-89
Author(s):  
Rita Harder
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Visual Modality ◽  
Linguistic Development ◽  
Syntactic Structures ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
Deaf Parents ◽  
Total Communication ◽  
Hearing Children ◽  
The Way

In the last few years many different studies have shed light on the cognitive and linguistic development of deaf children of deaf parents, using sign language. Since hearing loss does not influence a visual modality, the assumption was made that the linguistic development of deaf children of deaf parents, in the acquisition of sign language, should be normal. Research has shown that the way deaf children of deaf parents acquire sign language is similar to the way hearing children acquire their language. Both groups use the same semantic relations first in the same syntactic structures, the vocabulary and length of utterance expand in the same manner, and they show the same sort of overgeneralizations. As a result of studies concerning the language development of deaf children of deaf parents hometraining-programs for deaf children of hearing parents have reconsidered their approach concerning the use of signs in their programs, that is in the Total Communication philosophy they consider signs as an important part of the communication between hearing parents and their deaf children.

scholarly journals The value of interaction in the acquisition of a sign language

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 769-798
Author(s):  
Elidéa Lúcia Almeida Bernardino
Keyword(s):  
Sign Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Deaf Child ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Communicative Interaction ◽  
Hearing Parents ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
Deaf Parents ◽  
Brazilian Sign Language ◽  
First Contact

The acquisition of a sign language as a first language is a subject that is also of interest to researchers from many fields of study. This acquisition is significant for both deaf children of deaf parents as well as those of hearing parents, who consequently have late access to a language like Brazilian Sign language (Libras). The present study describes a test conducted with a pair of deaf twins who have hearing parents and who had their first contact with Libras at 5 years of age. However, upon being tested less than three years later, the twins showed a performance in Libras that was comparable to a deaf child of deaf parents. Although inconclusive, this study seeks to show the value of a continuous interlocutor, together with a genuine communicative interaction beginning from childhood, as commonly occurs with deaf twins, in the acquisition of a sign language.

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