How Do Deaf and Hearing Mothers Regain Eye Contact When Their Infants Look Away?

Abstract

The authors examine the effects that result when 9-month-old deaf and hearing infants break eye contact during face-to-face interactions with their deaf or hearing mothers. Of particular interest are mothers' responses when their infant looks away, and mothers' degree of success at regaining visual attention by using active bids in either the tactile, visual, or auditory modes. The authors also examine instances of maternal observing and waiting for the infant to reinitiate visual contact. For deaf infants, visual and tactile modalities are particularly important for communicating, interacting, and gaining information about their environment. While hearing parents have been shown to compensate intuitively for a deaf child's inability to perceive auditory cues (Koester, 1992, 1995), deaf parents may offer important insights into the use of other modalities to elicit and maintain a deaf infant's attention. Results of the study indicate a greater reliance among deaf mothers on visual strategies to regain infant attention, and a greater emphasis on vocalizations by hearing mothers, regardless of infant hearing status.

Analogous and Distinctive Patterns of Prelinguistic Communication in Toddlers With and Without Hearing Loss

“…This was particularly true with respect to the visual behavior of children with deafness who were studied in contexts of learning new linguistic labels (Jamieson, 1994a(Jamieson, , 1994b(Jamieson, , 1998Jamieson & Pederson, 1993;Koester et al, 1998;Lederberg, 2003;Prendergast & McCollum, 1996;Spencer & Gutfreund, 1990;Swisher, 1992). Our results call for future detailed investigations of book reading activities between mothers and toddlers with various amounts of residual hearing and in different ages and linguistic levels in order to better characterize the association between hearing status and triadic interaction with books.…”

“…The children with hearing loss produced responses, statements, questions, directives, and imitations more or less equally throughout time. As the language gap increased between the children with hearing loss and their hearing age-peers, clear differences emerged between the two groups' utilization of various communicative intentions.Several studies on communication patterns between hearing mothers and their children with hearing loss revealed difficulties faced by the mothers in adapting to the very unique visual needs of their young children (Jamieson, 1994a(Jamieson, , 1994b(Jamieson, , 1998Jamieson & Pederson, 1993;Koester, Karkowski, & Traci, 1998;Prendergast & McCollum, 1996;Spencer & Gutfreund, 1990;Swisher, 1992). For example, in a longitudinal study, MeadowOrlans and Spencer (1996) measured instances of coordinated joint attention in infants and their mothers during free play.…”

“…Several studies on communication patterns between hearing mothers and their children with hearing loss revealed difficulties faced by the mothers in adapting to the very unique visual needs of their young children (Jamieson, 1994a(Jamieson, , 1994b(Jamieson, , 1998Jamieson & Pederson, 1993;Koester, Karkowski, & Traci, 1998;Prendergast & McCollum, 1996;Spencer & Gutfreund, 1990;Swisher, 1992). For example, in a longitudinal study, MeadowOrlans and Spencer (1996) measured instances of coordinated joint attention in infants and their mothers during free play.…”

The language development of a deaf child with a cochlear implant

“…That Sophia relies on spoken language more than she does on other communication methods is in line with our expectations. Spoken Dutch is her usual and thus more intuitive way of communicating (Papousek, 2007;Koester, 1992Koester, , 1998Waxman & Spencer, 1997;Meadow-Orlans & Spencer, 1996). The other communication methods remain more or less stable during the study.…”

“…Moreover, abandoning 'their usual (vocal/spoken) mode of communication' and engaging with a child in a different and knowing, intentional, and conscious fashion requires more energy and time (Koester et al, 1998). Thus, hearing parents of deaf children run the risk of 'becoming worn down due to excessive rational decisions' (Papousek, Papousek, 1987;Koester, 1992, Waxman & Spencer, 1997.…”