Sign Language Development

Hall, M.L., Hall, W.C., Caselli, N.(2019). Deaf Children Need Language Not (Just) Speech. First Language,  Vol. 39(4) 367–395. Sage Publications. 

The authors of this article stress that in order to reach their full potential, Deaf and hard-of-hearing children need to master at least one language—either signed or spoken. Providing access to natural sign language supports this goal. Yet, some research makes unsupported claims about the inclusion of a natural sign language in favor of focusing exclusively on spoken language. The authors refute claims that there are harmful effects of sign language and that listening and spoken language are necessary for optional development of deaf children.  Although there are practical challenges that remain related to the provision of a sign language -rich environment, research evidence suggests that such challenges are worth tackling due to the host of benefits that learning a natural sign language provides to Deaf and hard-of-hearing children—especially in the prevention and reduction of language deprivation. 

The authors argue that the either/or dichotomy of spoken and sign languages need not, and should not, exist. Families that desire to foster their children’s listening and spoken language skills can pursue interventions to maximize them alongside a natural sign language. They strongly caution, however, that total reliance on listening and spoken language interventions comes with a high level of risk of language deprivation because even the most optimistic data-based outlook suggests that only approximately half of profoundly deaf children might have age-appropriate spoken language skills by kindergarten.

Osborne, L. (1999, October 24). A linguistic big bang. New York Times.

This newspaper article presents an account of the development of Nicaraguan Sign Language, explaining why this is so important to linguists and others interested in cognitive development. The article includes a review of the research by linguist Judy Kegl and Ann Senghas. Dr. Kegl has developed a theory on how home signs are enhanced into pidgin languages, which in turn are enhanced to become languages. Kegl and Senghas have observed the children using increasingly more complex grammatical constructions. For instance, they have seen verbs add inflection and agreement and other parts of speech, like prepositions, taking different forms than they do in spoken languages. For the people studying the development of Nicaraguan Sign Language, the most amazing feature may be that this is a language developed entirely by children.

Senghas, A. (1994). The development of Nicaraguan Sign Language via the language acquisition process. In D. MacLaughlin & S. McEwen (Eds.), Proceedings of the Boston University Conference on Language Development, 19 (pp. 543-552).

This is a study of language development among deaf children in Nicaragua as the Nicaraguan Sign Language developed. It discusses how the grammatical structure of these deaf signers grew in complexity. Key variables influencing the development of more complex language structures were the age of acquisition of Nicaraguan Sign Language and the year in which the child was first exposed to sign language. The latter is important because Nicaraguan Sign Language is a new language, and those exposed to it more recently have been exposed to a more rich and complex language. The language structures studied include the development of verb inflection and agreement. Deaf children who began signing at younger ages and those who began signing when the Nicaraguan Sign Language was more well established showed greater ability to use verb inflection and agreement.