THE BENEFIT OF EARLY EXPOSURE TO SIGN LANGUAGE*

Abstract

Early diagnosis and intervention are now recognized as undeniable rights of deaf and hard-of-hearing children and their families. The deaf child's family must have the opportunity to socialize with deaf children and deaf adults. The deaf child's family must also have access to all the information on the general development of their child, and to special information on hearing impairment, communication options and linguistic development of the deaf child. The critical period hypothesis for language acquisition proposes that the outcome of language acquisition is not uniform over the lifespan but rather is best during early childhood. Individuals who learned sign language from birth performed better on linguistic and memory tasks than individuals who did not start learning sign language until after puberty. The old prejudice that the deaf child must learn the spoken language at a very young age, and that sign language can wait because it can be easily learned by any person at any age, cannot be maintained anymore. The cultural approach to deafness emphasizes three necessary components in the development of a deaf child: 1. stimulating early communication using natural sign language within the family and interacting with the Deaf community; 2. bilingual / bicultural education and 3. ensuring deaf persons' rights to enjoy the services of high quality interpreters throughout their education from kindergarten to university. This new view of the phenomenology of deafness means that the environment needs to be changed in order to meet the deaf person's needs, not the contrary. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Headnote

Abstract

Early diagnosis and intervention are now recognized as undeniable rights of deaf and hard-of-hearing children and their families. The deaf child's family must have the opportunity to socialize with deaf children and deaf adults. The deaf child's family must also have access to all the information on the general development of their child, and to special information on hearing impairment, communication options and linguistic development of the deaf child.

The critical period hypothesis for language acquisition proposes that the outcome of language acquisition is not uniform over the lifespan but rather is best during early childhood. Individuals who learned sign language from birth performed better on linguistic and memory tasks than individuals who did not start learning sign language until after puberty. The old prejudice that the deaf child must learn the spoken language at a very young age, and that sign language can wait because it can be easily learned by any person at any age, cannot be maintained anymore.

The cultural approach to deafness emphasizes three necessary components in the development of a deaf child: 1. stimulating early communication using natural sign language within the family and interacting with the Deaf community; 2. bilingual / bicultural education and 3. ensuring deaf persons' rights to enjoy the services of high quality interpreters throughout their education from kindergarten to university. This new view of the phenomenology of deafness means that the environment needs to be changed in order to meet the deaf person's needs, not the contrary.

Key words: sign language, cultural approach, deaf/hearing mother - infant communication

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Introduction

During one counseling session, a hearing mother of a little deaf girl asked me: "When my girl grows up, how will I be able to talk to her, and answer her questions? Will she be able to tell me all about herself? Will I understand all that she wants to say to me? How and how much will she understand me? How close will we be? Will I be able to talk to her friends when they come to visit us/her? How can I talk to them, and how can I know what are they talking about? I won't know the language they use!"

A dilemma tormented her: should she learn sign language and utilize a communication system acceptable and suitable to the needs of her child, or should she adhere to spoken communication exclusively, a communication system that had already imposed limitations on their mutual comprehension? Spoken language was the natural and simple means of communication for the mother, but not for her daughter. The mother, however, recognized her girl's needs and wanted to adapt to them.

This mother's questions revealed several facts: she had accepted her daughter's deafness; she was aware that besides her hearing and speech (re)habilitation, there was a shared need for a natural means of communication. She was interested in getting information about the Deaf community, Deaf clubs and about courses in sign language. She was aware of the possible limitations of hearing and speech rehabilitation, and of the advantages of sign language communication.

By means of sign language communication, deaf children learn about the world, acquiring knowledge that is an important prerequisite for successful development of reading skills. Deaf children who communicate in sign language with parents, teachers and other people in their environment acquire sign language in a natural way, and have an age-appropriate linguistic ability when they begin school. Provided with the opportunity for normal development through acquisition of a natural sign language, deaf children can function just like any hearing child of the same age, both linguistically and with regard to social adaptation (1).

Sign language as a natural language of a Deaf community

For a long time the medical approach, also known as the pathological or deficit model (2), was a dominant one in the (re)habilitation and education of deaf and hard-of-hearing children, especially as a result of the Conference of Milan in 1880, although the history of this approach traces back more than 200 years. From the medical point of view, deafness is perceived as pathology, and the focus is on the impairment and the limitations that the deaf person has with respect to oral communication. Deafness was also assumed to have a negative effect on cognitive, emotional and social development, as well as on speech, language and literacy acquisition. Sign language was erroneously viewed as primitive, pictorial, incoherent series of gestures that could not be understood by hearing teachers, an ungrammatical means of communication, having no potential to express abstract concepts and ideas, and therefore harmful to the development of speech and language of deaf children (3).

Early intervention of deaf children in Croatia still proceeds with a predominantly auditoryspeech approach (i.e. using spoken Croatian only). This oral approach that applies vibrotactil stimulation, phonetic rhythm through movement and musical stimulation, developing sophisticated techniques for supporting hearing stimulation and amplification technology is well known as verbotonal method (4). A few years ago the Center for Cochlear Implantation was opened to support parents and children with CI. At the same time, the requirement for hearing screening tests for newborns was established in every delivery hospital (5).

The cultural approach to deafness views sign language as a natural symbolic activity of Deaf people. Sign languages have their own linguistic genetic histories, and it is impossible to envision the spiritual and social life of the Deaf community without it. Interest in sign language, its linguistic status and its practical value in communication and education was renewed with linguistic and psycholinguistic research that gained momentum in the 1960s (6). Sign language was described by researchers as a comprehensive, systematic, and sophisticated language that Deaf children and adults comprehended fully in conversations with one another. Since sign languages are communicated in the visual/manual modality in space, whereas people traditionally think of languages as being spoken and heard, it took some time for systematic investigations of the various aspects of different sign languages to be recognized as legitimate scientific contributions.

Natural languages, whether spoken or signed, can represent and convey the same concepts. Linguistic studies of natural sign languages (especially American Sign Language - ASL) have supported the conclusion that a sign language is comprised of all the linguistic components that any spoken language has: phonetics (a system of articulation and perception), phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Sign languages are investigated and interpreted within general theories of language structure.

What does it mean to say "natural sign language"? We imply at least two basic criteria. First, natural sign languages are acquired in infancy (from birth) in communication with other sign language users, in a manner parallel to how hearing children learn spoken languages, that is, without formal teaching. In a relatively short period of time from birth to age 3 or 4, children take control over the basics of their own language, whether spoken or signed. Second, every natural language has a community of users, that is, people who use the language as their everyday home communication means. In the case of sign languages, it is the Deaf community.

Other artificially created language-like systems, such as those used in some education programs, require formal teaching procedures for learning and cannot be acquired spontaneously. These systems include signed versions of the surrounding spoken language, for example signed English, signed Croatian, signed German. The necessity of formal teaching is not the only difference that separates artificial sign systems from natural sign languages. Another major difference lies in the manner of production and perception, that is, of processing. A signer must possess the grammar to use signs communicatively, i.e. the symbolic capacity that includes knowing the linguistic rules for how to use a particular natural sign language.

The cultural approach to deafness emphasizes three necessary components in the development of a deaf child; in some countries these components have not yet been implemented in deaf education, but in other countries they are well established as effective methods for communication and education:

1. Stimulating early communication by using natural sign language within the family and interacting with the Deaf community, thereby creating the foundations of language on the basis of sophisticated symbolic signed communication;

2. Bilingual / bicultural education;

3. Ensuring deaf persons' rights to enjoy the services of high quality interpreters throughout their education from kindergarten to university.

This new view of the phenomenology of deafness means that the environment needs to be changed in order to meet the deaf person's needs, not the contrary.

The cultural approach recognizes the Deaf community as a group of people coming together to form a community around shared experience, common interests, shared norms of behavior, and shared survival techniques. They seek each other out for social interaction and emotional support. This is not to say that mainstream education is iniquitous for deaf children, but we must keep in mind that socialization is essential to a child's growth and without a common language socialization is limited (7). On the basis of established scientific insight (linguistic, psychological, social, legal), the Deaf community worldwide is working on being acknowledged as a cultural/linguistic minority - i.e. a minority group with its own language, cultural creativity, institutions, values, rules of behavior, traditions, history, and organizations (8, 9).

How does a Deaf mother / a hearing mother communicate with a deaf infant?

Psycholinguistic studies of sign language acquisition corroborate the hypothesis that in the course of sign language acquisition, deaf infants follow the same linguistic patterns (processes, milestones) that developmental psychologists observe in hearing children in the process of language acquisition (10, 11, 12). Observations on the behavior of Deaf mothers communicating with their deaf infants reveal that the mothers modify their sign language communication in the same way as hearing mothers modify their spoken language when communicating with their hearing child (13).

Erting et al (14) also noticed that Deaf mothers modify their sign language in the same way hearing parents do, addressing an infant using baby talk ("motherese"). For example, the location of the sign is always closer to the child, by means of which the parent intuitively and unconsciously adapts his/her communication to the visual capacities of the infant. Parents also repeat and simplify gestures. The same gesture may be repeated several times, enhancing the infant's processing of the message. Facial expressions transmit important linguistic and affective messages while signing, and mothers' faces are kept totally visible to deaf children. The face also conveys positive emotions as a reward for the infant's attention and his/her willingness to participate in the exchange. Overall, the way in which a deaf mother addresses her deaf infant in sign language is distinct from sign language communication between two deaf adults. When an infant looks at his/her mother, she produces signs in front of her face, rather than signing them in the broader signing space which is used between signing adults. Likewise, if the infant looks away or at another object, mothers attempt to bring signs as close as possible to the object or into the infant's field of vision in order to be sure that the signs will be seen and the message will be communicated to the child.

Erting et al (14) infer that Deaf mothers possess a certain intuitive knowledge, adopted within their culture, of how to communicate with their deaf infant: how to win over and sustain the infant's attention, how to direct attention to the signs and how to relate language to the child's surroundings in a meaningful way. Deaf children of deaf parents who acquire sign language from birth also acquire the essential foundation for the subsequent linguistic socialization, and do so by interaction that has been structured according to the requirements of a visual-spatial language.

However, we must not forget that the majority of deaf children (over 90%) are born to hearing parents, to whom such modifications in interaction are as completely obscure as sign language itself. To effectively use a different modality of communication, these parents must modify many of the intuitive manners associated with spoken communication (like baby talk and non-verbal rhythmical behavior that comes with it). Hearing parents need to consciously learn these methods of communication (gaining the infant's attention and sustaining it by means of a visual and tactile channel; facial expressions) that will later become spontaneous and natural behavior towards one's own deaf child.

Studies in the behavior of hearing mothers demonstrate that they increase eye contact and visual activities while interacting with their deaf infants even when the infant is no more than 9 months old and that they do it considerably more often than mothers of hearing children do (15).

Wedell-Monning and Lumley (16) point out that there exists an early visual communication between deaf children and their hearing parents, and that such communication is in fact a recurrent reason that postpones early diagnosis. In fact, hearing parents interpret their infant's reactions to visual and vibratory stimuli incorrectly as reactions to parental vocalization. Consequently, there is the appearance of a very good communication with the infant, founded on eye contact, facial expression and touch. However, what is missing and what is not developing is symbolic language.

Early diagnosis and intervention are now recognized as undeniable rights of deaf and hard-of-hearing children and their families. To this end ASLHA (American Speech-Language- Hearing Association) recommended the creation of appropriate early intervention programs oriented towards the family, programs that provide a choice of communication options. The deaf child's family must have the opportunity to socialize with deaf children and deaf adults. The deaf child's family must also have access to all the information on the general development of their child, and to special information on hearing impairment, communication options and linguistic development of the deaf child (17).

Deaf children exposed to sign language watch their language from birth just like hearing children listen to their language from birth. Mayberry (18) designed a series of experiments to investigate whether and how the critical period affects the outcome of sign language acquisition. The results of her psycholinguistic research show that the critical period hypothesis applies equally to sign language (19). Individuals who learned sign language from birth performed better on linguistic and memory tasks than individuals who did not start learning sign language until after puberty. The old prejudice that the deaf child must learn the spoken language at a very young age, and that sign language can wait because it can be easily learned by any person at any age, cannot be maintained anymore.

Experience from the Netherlands

The Royal Institute for the Deaf "H. D. Guyot" in the northern part of the Netherlands is a policy center for deaf education in that country. More than twenty years ago it recommended the use of bimodal communication (speaking and signing at the same time) because it seemed that hearing parents could best be helped by such a communication system. The Institute made use of elements of the Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT Nederlandse Gebarentaal), accompanied by spoken Dutch, and the result was Sign-Supported Dutch (SSD). Simultaneous communication (such as SSD, SE - Signed English, etc.) is bimodal, hybrid communication - using two modes, speaking and signing at the same time, to convey a single message. In such sign systems, "messages are formulated and transmitted according to the lexicon, morphology, and syntax of a spoken language. The communicator actually speaks out loud - using Dutch in the case of SSD - and attempts to simultaneously sign manual lexical elements that can be accommodated to the rhythm and structure of the spoken language" (20). The literature on the ways that these two modes (speaking and signing at the same time) can interact to carry information is reviewed in Wilbur and Petersen (21).

The Guyot Institute abandoned Sign Supported Dutch (SSD) in 1995, because it was not succeeding as a primary language for parentchild communication beyond a basic level. It was also difficult for teachers and service personnel to use, and deaf staff workers found it unmanageable for advanced communication. The educational policy at the Guyot Institute was changed from SSD to Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). Deaf children, as well as their parents (deaf or hearing) needed a natural sign language for successful and meaningful communication.

Hoiting and Slobin (20) analyzed data from deaf children aged 1;3 to 3;0 years collected over a 12-year period (1988-2000), the time before and after the educational policy was changed from SSD to NGT. The aim of their research was to show that the Guyot Institute made a beneficial decision by replacing SSD with NGT. The authors reported significant advantages to the children who received the NGT input compared to the SSD input. Parents who used NGT used more varied grammatical structures, used a wider choice of lexical items, and provided better modeling of appropriate uses of language (questions, requests, demands, plans, etc.). As for the children's output, the children receiving NGT input produced longer and more complex output than the children exposed to SSD. The SSD children used fewer questions, and showed less variety in sentence type overall. Lack of variety in the sentence types in the parental input provided limited data for the children to discover rules of word order and ellipsis in the language.

Looking at the development of morphological complexity, Hoiting and Slobin (20) found that all five NGT children used complex verbs, whereas only two of the five SSD-learning children did so. Furthermore, looking at all complex verbs produced, 90% were produced by NGT children. Thus, signing while speaking does not provide the linguistic requirements for true bilingual development. In general, it is difficult to coordinate speaking and signing simultaneously.

All the developmental advantages of early language acquisition lie with the natural sign languages (22, 23, 24). Now the policy of the school of Guyot Institute is that all parents should use NGT with their children, regardless of their hope for eventual success with cochlear implantation.

Conclusion

Sign language gives parents the possibility to communicate with their children in the same way as parents talking to their hearing children communicate about everyday issues. This is the way that deaf children develop age-appropriate psychosocial skills. Sign language also makes it possible for the deaf children to communicate with deaf adults. It is important for deaf children because of identification with the Deaf community as a linguistic minority. Sign language makes it possible for deaf children to receive age-appropriate education on the same level as their hearing peers. Finally, sign language makes it possible for deaf youth as well as deaf adults to acquire information through the help of an interpreter and to function as valuable members of the society at large.

Footnote

* This paper was presented at the Second European Congress of Early Prevention in Children with Verbal Communication Dissorders, September 26 - 28, 2008, Sofia, Bulgaria

References

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