Influence of Certain Language and Communication Environments in Early Childhood on the Development of Language in Deaf Individuals

Abstract

Four groups of deaf subjects between the ages of 10-0 and 18-11 years were tested, employing the Test of Syntactic Ability, and the language subtests of the Stanford Achievement Test, in a study of the influence of early language and communication environment on later syntactic language ability. The groups, 18 subjects in each, were dichotomized by whether the parents were hearing or deaf and further subgrouped by the language ability of the parents if the parents were deaf, and by the amount and intensity of oral preschool training provided by the parents if the parents were hearing. The groups were labeled by the type of language used with them in infancy and early childhood: manual English, average manual, intensive oral, and average oral. Results showed significant superiority of the manual English group over the two oral groups on five of the six major test structures of the Test of Syntactic Ability. On the Stanford Achievement Test, the manual English group performed significantly better than the other three groups on all four subtests. The two manual groups performed significantly better than the two oral groups on every test measure employed.

Pediatric Cochlear Implantation—Why the Delay

“…Number of auditory skills are present in infants born with normal hearing and these are crucial to development of language; many of these proficiencies appear to be present as early as birth or beforehand [12][13][14][15]. Children with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss do not have the benefit of early exposure to spoken language due to limited linguistic input and therefore lag behind in development of spoken language [16][17][18][19][20][21][22].…”

Deafness and mother–child interaction: Scaffolded instruction and the learning of problem‐solving skills

“…A great deal has been written about the po or language skills and low levels of educational achievement of deaf children (see Allen, 1986;Brasel & Quigley, 1977;Moo~es, 1982, to cite only a few examples). The education of children for whom comwunicatiun is hindered because of severe or profound deafness from birth is clearly a challenging process, both for the child and the teacher.…”

The identification of early factors related to academic achievement among deaf students

“…Research shows that deaf children's academic achievement is usually not commensurate with their measured intellectual ability (Brasel & Quigley, 1977;Desselle, 1994;Padden, 1990). Academic achievement continues to be an important aspect of schooling.…”

“…According to Brasel & Quigley (1977), anything that hinders the development of this early language foundation will interfere with all subsequent learning. The development of language is important for the cognitive development of all youngsters, regardless of the language (spoken or sign) that is learned.…”

“…Therefore, why do deaf children not perform well academically? Deaf children's academic deficits are related to several factors which include a lack of a language-rich environment, lack of early identification of deafness, lack of early use of amplification, and lack of an early intervention (preschool) program (Desselle, 1994;Brasel & Quigley, 1977;Ross & Giolas, 1978;Goetzinger & Rousely, 1959). These factors may be causative factors directly related to the gaps between deaf children's ability and their actual achievement The goal of all schooling is effective education and the method of achieving this goal is related directly to learning language as early as possible (Mitchell, 1982).…”