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Deaf and Hearing American Sign Language-English Bilinguals: Typical Bilingual Language Development
Abstract
Some studies have concluded that sign language hinders spoken language development for deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children even though sign language exposure could protect DHH children from experiencing language deprivation. Furthermore, this research has rarely considered the bilingualism of children learning a signed and a spoken language. Here we compare spoken English development in 2-6-year-old deaf and hearing American Sign Language-English bilingual children to each other and to monolingual English speakers in a comparison database. Age predicted bilinguals' language scores on all measures, whereas hearing status was only significant for one measure. Both bilingual groups tended to score below monolinguals. Deaf bilinguals' scores differed more from monolinguals, potentially because of later age of and less total exposure to English, and/or to hearing through a cochlear implant. Overall, these results are consistent with typical early bilingual language development. Research and practice must treat signing-speaking children as bilinguals and consider the bilingual language development literature.
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Purpose:
The purpose of this study is to determine whether and how learning American Sign Language (ASL) is associated with spoken English skills in a sample of ASL-English bilingual deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children.
Method:
This cross-sectional study of vocabulary size included 56 DHH children between 8 and 60 months of age who were learning both ASL and spoken English and had hearing parents. English and ASL vocabulary were independently assessed via parent report checklists.
Results:
ASL vocabulary size positively correlated with spoken English vocabulary size. Spoken English vocabulary sizes in the ASL-English bilingual DHH children in the present sample were comparable to those in previous reports of monolingual DHH children who were learning only English. ASL-English bilingual DHH children had total vocabularies (combining ASL and English) that were equivalent to same-age hearing monolingual children. Children with large ASL vocabularies were more likely to have spoken English vocabularies in the average range based on norms for hearing monolingual children.
Conclusions:
Contrary to predictions often cited in the literature, acquisition of sign language does not harm spoken vocabulary acquisition. This retrospective, correlational study cannot determine whether there is a causal relationship between sign language and spoken language vocabulary acquisition, but if a causal relationship exists, the evidence here suggests that the effect would be positive. Bilingual DHH children have age-expected vocabularies when considering the entirety of their language skills. We found no evidence to support recommendations that families with DHH children avoid learning sign language. Rather, our findings show that children with early ASL exposure can develop age-appropriate vocabulary skills in both ASL and spoken English.
Much research has found disrupted executive functioning (EF) in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children; while some theories emphasize the role of auditory deprivation, others posit delayed language experience as the primary cause. This study investigated the role of language and auditory experience in parent-reported EF for 123 preschool-aged children (Mage = 60.1 months, 53.7% female, 84.6% White). Comparisons between DHH and typically hearing children exposed to language from birth (spoken or signed) showed no significant differences in EF despite drastic differences in auditory input. Linear models demonstrated that earlier language exposure predicted better EF (β = .061-.341), while earlier auditory exposure did not. Few participants exhibited clinically significant executive dysfunction. Results support theories positing that language, not auditory experience, scaffolds EF development.
A crucial part of statistical analysis is evaluating a model's quality and fit, or performance. During analysis, especially with regression models, investigating the fit of models to data also often involves selecting the best fitting model amongst many competing models. Upon investigation, fit indices should also be reported both visually and numerically to bring readers in on the investigative effort. The performance R-package (R Core Team, 2021) provides utilities for computing measures to assess model quality, many of which are not directly provided by R's base or stats packages. These include measures like R 2 , intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), root mean squared error (RMSE), or functions to check for vexing issues like overdispersion, singularity, or zero-inflation. These functions support a large variety of regression models including generalized linear models, (generalized) mixed-effects models, their Bayesian cousins, and many others. Statement of Need While functions to build and produce diagnostic plots or to compute fit statistics exist, these are located across many packages, which results in a lack of a unique and consistent approach to assess the performance of many types of models. The result is a difficult-to-navigate, unorganized ecosystem of individual packages with different syntax, making it onerous for researchers to locate and use fit indices relevant for their unique purposes. The performance package in R fills this gap by offering researchers a suite of intuitive functions with consistent syntax for computing, building, and presenting regression model fit statistics and visualizations. performance is part of the easystats ecosystem, which is a collaborative project focused on facilitating simple and intuitive usage of R for statistical analysis (Ben-Shachar et al., performance package offers functions for checking validity and model quality systematically and comprehensively for many regression model objects such as (generalized) linear models, mixed-effects models, and Bayesian models. performance also offers functions to compare and test multiple models simultaneously to evaluate the best fitting model to the data.
Objective
To examine whether deaf or hard of hearing children who have hearing parents can develop age-level vocabulary skills when they have early exposure to a sign language.
Study design
This cross-sectional study of vocabulary size included 78 deaf or hard of hearing children between 8- and 68-months-old who were learning American Sign Language (ASL) and had hearing parents. Children who were exposed to ASL before 6- months-old or between 6- and 36-months-old were compared with a reference sample of 104 deaf and hard of hearing children who have deaf, signing parents.
Results
Deaf and hard of hearing children with hearing parents who were exposed to ASL in the first six months of life had age-expected receptive and expressive vocabulary growth. Children who had a short delay in ASL exposure had relatively smaller expressive but not receptive vocabulary sizes, and made rapid gains.
Conclusions
Though hearing parents generally learn ASL alongside their deaf children, their children can develop age-expected vocabulary skills when exposed to ASL during infancy. deaf children with hearing parents can predictably and consistently develop age-level vocabularies at rates similar to native signers; early vocabulary skills are robust predictors of development across domains.
Despite advances in hearing technology, a growing body of research, as well as early intervention protocols, deaf children largely fail to meet age-based language milestones. This gap in language acquisition points to the inconsistencies that exist between research and practice. Current research suggests that bimodal bilingual early interventions at deaf identification provide children language foundations that can lead to more effective outcomes. Recommendations that support implementing bimodal bilingualism at deaf identification include early intervention protocols, language foundations, and the development of appropriate bimodal bilingual environments. All recommendations serve as multifaceted tools in a deaf child’s repertoire as language and modality preferences develop and solidify. This versatile approach allows for children to determine their own language and communication preferences.
Language deprivation syndrome (LDS) is a permanent and preventable disability affecting language, cognition, and behavior that is epidemic in the deaf population. Since 1990, systemic and technological changes in the health care of deaf children have created a new paradigm that perpetuates this crisis. Physicians and other professionals have been largely unaware of their roles in this recent epidemic. An evidenced based system of care that addresses the causes and potential solutions can reverse this trend and prevent early language deprivation in deaf children.
The aim of this article is to increase awareness of language practices in the deaf community that affect communication needs and health outcomes, focusing particularly on the prevalence of bilingualism among deaf adults. Language deprivation and poor health outcomes in the deaf population are risks that cannot be addressed solely by hearing intervention. We propose that bilingualism acts as a protective measure to minimize the health risks faced by deaf individuals. Provision of culturally and linguistically appropriate services to deaf stakeholders, and particularly hearing families of deaf children, requires familiarity with the developmental and social ramifications of bilingualism.
Purpose
This article examines whether syntactic and vocabulary abilities in American Sign Language (ASL) facilitate 6 categories of language-based analogical reasoning.
Method
Data for this study were collected from 267 deaf participants, aged 7;6 (years;months) to 18;5. The data were collected from an ongoing study initially funded by the U.S. Institute of Education Sciences in 2010. The participants were given assessments of ASL vocabulary and syntax knowledge and a task of language-based analogies presented in ASL. The data were analyzed using mixed-effects linear modeling to first see how language-based analogical reasoning developed in deaf children and then to see how ASL knowledge influenced this developmental trajectory.
Results
Signing deaf children were shown to demonstrate language-based reasoning abilities in ASL consistent with both chronological age and home language environment. Notably, when ASL vocabulary and syntax abilities were statistically taken into account, these were more important in fostering the development of language-based analogical reasoning abilities than were chronological age and home language. We further showed that ASL vocabulary ability and ASL syntactic knowledge made different contributions to different analogical reasoning subconstructs.
Conclusions
ASL is a viable language that supports the development of language-based analogical reasoning abilities in deaf children.
Count data can be analyzed using generalized linear mixed models when observations are correlated in ways that require random effects. However, count data are often zero-inflated, containing more zeros than would be expected from the typical error distributions. We present a new package, glmmTMB, and compare it to other R packages that fit zero-inflated mixed models. The glmmTMB package fits many types of GLMMs and extensions, including models with continuously distributed responses, but here we focus on count responses. glmmTMB is faster than glmmADMB, MCMCglmm, and brms, and more flexible than INLA and mgcv for zero-inflated modeling. One unique feature of glmmTMB (among packages that fit zero-inflated mixed models) is its ability to estimate the Conway-Maxwell-Poisson distribution parameterized by the mean. Overall, its most appealing features for new users may be the combination of speed, flexibility, and its interface's similarity to lme4.
Background:
Most children with hearing loss who receive cochlear implants (CI) learn spoken language, and parents must choose early on whether to use sign language to accompany speech at home. We address whether parents' use of sign language before and after CI positively influences auditory-only speech recognition, speech intelligibility, spoken language, and reading outcomes.
Methods:
Three groups of children with CIs from a nationwide database who differed in the duration of early sign language exposure provided in their homes were compared in their progress through elementary grades. The groups did not differ in demographic, auditory, or linguistic characteristics before implantation.
Results:
Children without early sign language exposure achieved better speech recognition skills over the first 3 years postimplant and exhibited a statistically significant advantage in spoken language and reading near the end of elementary grades over children exposed to sign language. Over 70% of children without sign language exposure achieved age-appropriate spoken language compared with only 39% of those exposed for 3 or more years. Early speech perception predicted speech intelligibility in middle elementary grades. Children without sign language exposure produced speech that was more intelligible (mean = 70%) than those exposed to sign language (mean = 51%).
Conclusions:
This study provides the most compelling support yet available in CI literature for the benefits of spoken language input for promoting verbal development in children implanted by 3 years of age. Contrary to earlier published assertions, there was no advantage to parents' use of sign language either before or after CI.
A long-standing belief is that sign language interferes with spoken language development in deaf children, despite a chronic lack of evidence supporting this belief. This deserves discussion as poor life outcomes continue to be seen in the deaf population. This commentary synthesizes research outcomes with signing and non-signing children and highlights fully accessible language as a protective factor for healthy development. Brain changes associated with language deprivation may be misrepresented as sign language interfering with spoken language outcomes of cochlear implants. This may lead to professionals and organizations advocating for preventing sign language exposure before implantation and spreading misinformation. The existence of one-time-sensitive-language acquisition window means a strong possibility of permanent brain changes when spoken language is not fully accessible to the deaf child and sign language exposure is delayed, as is often standard practice. There is no empirical evidence for the harm of sign language exposure but there is some evidence for its benefits, and there is growing evidence that lack of language access has negative implications. This includes cognitive delays, mental health difficulties, lower quality of life, higher trauma, and limited health literacy. Claims of cochlear implant- and spoken language-only approaches being more effective than sign language-inclusive approaches are not empirically supported. Cochlear implants are an unreliable standalone first-language intervention for deaf children. Priorities of deaf child development should focus on healthy growth of all developmental domains through a fully-accessible first language foundation such as sign language, rather than auditory deprivation and speech skills.
A wide range of linguistic phenomena contribute to our understanding of the architecture of the human linguistic system. In this paper we present a proposal dubbed Language Synthesis to capture bilingual phenomena including code-switching and ‘transfer’ as automatic consequences of the addition of a second language, using basic concepts of Minimalism and Distributed Morphology. Bimodal bilinguals, who use a sign language and a spoken language, provide a new type of evidence regarding possible bilingual phenomena, namely code-blending, the simultaneous production of (aspects of) a message in both speech and sign. We argue that code-blending also follows naturally once a second articulatory interface is added to the model. Several different types of code-blending are discussed in connection to the predictions of the Synthesis model. Our primary data come from children developing as bimodal bilinguals, but our proposal is intended to capture a wide range of bilingual effects across any language pair.
Failing to acquire language in early childhood because of language deprivation is a rare and exceptional event, except in one population. Deaf children who grow up without access to indirect language through listening, speech-reading, or sign language experience language deprivation. Studies of Deaf adults have revealed that late acquisition of sign language is associated with lasting deficits. However, much remains unknown about language deprivation in Deaf children, allowing myths and misunderstandings regarding sign language to flourish. To fill this gap, we examined signing ability in a large naturalistic sample of Deaf children attending schools for the Deaf where American Sign Language (ASL) is used by peers and teachers. Ability in ASL was measured using a syntactic judgment test and language-based analogical reasoning test, which are two sub-tests of the ASL Assessment Inventory. The influence of two age-related variables were examined: whether or not ASL was acquired from birth in the home from one or more Deaf parents, and the age of entry to the school for the Deaf. Note that for non-native signers, this latter variable is often the age of first systematic exposure to ASL. Both of these types of age-dependent language experiences influenced subsequent signing ability. Scores on the two tasks declined with increasing age of school entry. The influence of age of starting school was not linear. Test scores were generally lower for Deaf children who entered the school of assessment after the age of 12. The positive influence of signing from birth was found for students at all ages tested (7;6–18;5 years old) and for children of all age-of-entry groupings. Our results reflect a continuum of outcomes which show that experience with language is a continuous variable that is sensitive to maturational age.
in a variety of contexts, deaf individuals often must navigate multiple societal, psychological, and physical barriers. It is frequently proposed that role models meet an important need for successful navigation in such contexts. The present article, a research synthesis, explores available literature on role models for deaf individuals, drawing from social capital theory to conceptualize how individuals in social networks can facilitate the development of resources necessary for navigating various settings. Four key themes were identified, two being that role models (a) address a critical need and (b) contribute to important developmental processes. In addition, (c) key elements appear to be necessary for effective role modeling, and (d) multidimensional cultural affiliations are important considerations within the role model process. Though more research is needed, the findings suggest that role models play an important role in how deaf individuals build social capital.
Context:
Permanent hearing loss affects 1 to 3 per 1000 children and interferes with typical communication development. Early detection through newborn hearing screening and hearing technology provide most children with the option of spoken language acquisition. However, no consensus exists on optimal interventions for spoken language development.
Objective:
To conduct a systematic review of the effectiveness of early sign and oral language intervention compared with oral language intervention only for children with permanent hearing loss.
Data sources:
An a priori protocol was developed. Electronic databases (eg, Medline, Embase, CINAHL) from 1995 to June 2013 and gray literature sources were searched. Studies in English and French were included.
Study selection:
Two reviewers screened potentially relevant articles.
Data extraction:
Outcomes of interest were measures of auditory, vocabulary, language, and speech production skills. All data collection and risk of bias assessments were completed and then verified by a second person. Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) was used to judge the strength of evidence.
Results:
Eleven cohort studies metinclusion criteria, of which 8 included only children with severe to profound hearing loss with cochlear implants. Language development was the most frequently reported outcome. Other reported outcomes included speech and speech perception.
Limitations:
Several measures and metrics were reported across studies, and descriptions of interventions were sometimes unclear.
Conclusions:
Very limited, and hence insufficient, high-quality evidence exists to determine whethersign language in combination with oral language is more effective than oral language therapy alone. More research is needed to supplement the evidence base.
th , 2013; revised October 8 th , 2103; accepted November 6 th , 2013 Copyright © 2013 M. Diane Clark et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In accordance of the Creative Commons Attribution License all Copyrights © 2013 are reserved for SCIRP and the owner of the intellectual property M. Diane Clark et al. All Copyright © 2013 are guarded by law and by SCIRP as a guardian. This paper reports on the development of the Beliefs and Attitudes about Deaf Education (BADE) scale and presents psychometric information derived from the administration of the scale to a national sample of parents, teachers, and program administrators during Wave 1 data collection of the Early Educational Longitudinal Study (EELS). Initially the scale had 47 items; however, 26 items were eliminated during analysis because they were found to be either redundant or not contributing to the most significant under- lying latent attitudinal factors. We examined the content of the items loading highly on the factors in this final analysis to determine appropriate subscale labels for the factors. These are as follows: 1) Literacy through Hearing Technologies and/or Visual Support for Speech Comprehension; 2) Visual Language and Bilingualism; 3) Listening and Spoken Language; and 4) Difficulties Associated with Hearing Parents Learning ASL. The BADE scale will be helpful to families with deaf children and the professionals working with them as they explore the different communication options and their own personal beliefs and attitudes toward deaf education.
This study compares the development of three different types of bilingual/second language children in their acquisition of gender-marking on adjectives in Dutch to investigate whether there is evidence for age-of-onset effects in early childhood as proposed by Meisel (200932.
Meisel , Jürgen M . 2009. Second language acquisition in early childhood. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, 28: 5–34. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references). The three groups of children are: simultaneous bilingual children, exposed to Dutch and English from birth; early successive bilingual children, first exposed to Dutch between the ages of 1 and 3 years; and second language children, whose age at first exposure ranged from 4 to 10 years. In an initial analysis that included all children, early successive bilingual and in particular second language children produced qualitatively different errors from the other bilingual and monolingual groups. It is argued, however, that these errors resulted from transfer from the children's other language, English. Once children's knowledge of gender attribution is taken into account, similar error profiles were observed across all groups (contra Meisel 200932.
Meisel , Jürgen M . 2009. Second language acquisition in early childhood. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, 28: 5–34. [CrossRef], [Web of Science ®]View all references).
The purpose of this study was to investigate receptive vocabulary achievement among French-English bilinguals in Canada. Standardized test scores of receptive vocabulary were measured in both languages from preschool, early-elementary, and late-elementary French-English bilingual children, and French-English bilingual adults. Mean vocabulary scores across all bilingual age groups were statistically equivalent to or above the standard mean in French and English with the exception of the early-elementary bilinguals who scored below the standard mean on the English vocabulary assessment. Mean vocabulary scores of the preschool and adult bilingual groups were not significantly different from those of their monolingual peers in either language. However, early-elementary and late-elementary bilingual children scored significantly lower than monolinguals on the English vocabulary assessment. The positive sociocultural context for French-English bilingualism in Canada as well as language input changes in school are discussed as underlying reasons for these findings.
Most deaf children have hearing parents who do not know a sign language at birth and are at risk of limited language input during early childhood. Studying these children as they learn a sign language has revealed that timing of first-language exposure critically shapes language outcomes. But the input deaf children receive in their first language is not only delayed, it is much more variable than most first language learners, as many learn their first language from parents who are themselves new sign language learners. Much of the research on deaf children learning a sign language has considered the role of parent input using broad strokes, categorizing hearing parents as non-native, poor signers, and deaf parents as native, strong signers. In this study, we deconstruct these categories and examine how variation in sign language skills among hearing parents might affect children’s vocabulary acquisition. This study included 44 deaf children between 8- and 60-months-old who were learning American Sign Language (ASL) and had hearing parents who were also learning ASL. We observed an interactive effect of parent ASL proficiency and age, such that parent ASL proficiency was a significant predictor of child ASL vocabulary size, but not among the infants and toddlers. The proficiency of language models can affect acquisition above and beyond age of acquisition, particularly as children grow. At the same time, the most skilled parents in this sample were not as fluent as “native” deaf signers, and yet their children reliably had age-expected ASL vocabularies. Data and reproducible analyses are available at https://osf.io/9ya6h/.
This article presents a selective overview of topics related to the language experience of early bimodal bilinguals - individuals who are raised from an early age using two languages from two different modalities, typically spoken (or written) and signed. We show that deaf and hearing bimodal bilinguals may display patterns of bilingualism that are similar to unimodal bilinguals in some ways, such as the use of both languages in a single situation or even a single utterance. Nevertheless, there are also differences between bimodal and unimodal bilinguals, and differences among different subgroups of bimodal bilinguals, given large variation in relative access to the dominant and minority language(s) in their environment and their differential experiences in schooling and interactions with potential interlocutors. Moreover, we review studies discussing potential advantages of the sign modality and advantages of bilingualism in this population. We hope to highlight the importance of considering children’s overall language experience, including the age(s) at which they are exposed to each of their languages, the richness of their experiences with each of the languages, and the ways that the language-learning experience may contribute to the child’s linguistic and cognitive development.
Purpose
The Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn) is a well-known language sample analysis tool. However, its psychometric properties have not been assessed across a wide sample of typically developing preschool-age children and children with language disorders. We sought to determine the profile of IPSyn scores by age over early childhood. We additionally explored whether the IPSyn could be shortened to fewer items without loss of information and whether the required language sample could be shortened from a current required number of 100 utterances to 50.
Method
We used transcripts from the Child Language Data Exchange System, including 1,051 samples of adult–child conversational play with toys within the theoretical framework of item response theory. Samples included those from typically developing children as well as children with hearing loss, Down syndrome, and late language emergence.
Results
The Verb Phrase and Sentence Structure subscales showed more stable developmental trajectories over the preschool years and greater differentiation between typical and atypical cohorts than did the Noun Phrase and Question/Negation subscales. A number of current IPSyn scoring items can be dropped without loss of information, and 50-utterance samples demonstrate most of the same psychometric properties of longer samples.
Discussion
Our findings suggest ways in which the IPSyn can be automated and streamlined (proposed IPSyn-C) so as to provide useful clinical guidance with fewer items and a shorter required language sample. Reference values for the IPSyn-C are provided. Trajectories for one subscale (Question/Negation) appear inherently unstable and may require structured elicitation. Potential limitations, ramifications, and future directions are discussed.
Supplemental Material
https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16915690
Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children experience systematic barriers to equitable education due to intentional or unintentional ableist views that can lead to a general lack of awareness about the value of natural sign languages and insufficient resources supporting sign language development. Furthermore, an imbalance of information in favor of spoken languages often stems from a phonocentric perspective that views signing as an inferior form of communication that also hinders the development of spoken language. On the contrary, research demonstrates that early adoption of a natural sign language confers critical protection from the risks of language deprivation without endangering spoken language development. In this position paper, we draw attention to deep societal biases about language in the information presented to parents of DHH children, against early exposure to a natural sign language. We outline actions that parents and professionals can adopt to maximize DHH children’s chances for on-time language development.
Purpose
Speech-language pathologists have both a professional and ethical responsibility to provide culturally competent services to dual language learners (DLLs). In this tutorial, we recommend that clinicians use a comprehensive assessment of converging evidence to make diagnostic decisions in DLLs in accordance with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's Code of Ethics. The content of this tutorial is most appropriate for Spanish–English DLLs between the ages of 4 and 8 years.
Method
We propose a converging evidence approach, in which one single method is not the deciding factor in making diagnostic decisions regarding the dual language and speech production skills of DLLs. Converging evidence refers to the idea that multiple pieces of assessment data must come together and trend in the same direction to make a diagnostic decision. We recommend gathering assessment data using a combination of language experience questionnaires, bilingual language sample analysis using large-scale reference databases, evaluation of learning potential, and standardized testing. These four assessment methods allow clinicians to examine the child in different contexts to determine their strengths and weakness in communication abilities.
Conclusion
We illustrate the converging evidence framework using two case studies to guide the clinician through the diagnostic decision-making process.
Signing systems that attempted to represent spoken language via manual signs – some invented, and some borrowed from natural sign languages – have historically been used in classrooms with deaf children. However, despite decades of research and use of these systems in the classroom, there is little evidence supporting their educational effectiveness. In this paper, the authors argue against the use of signing systems as instructional tools. This argument is based upon research demonstrating that (1) signing systems are less comprehensible to learners who rely upon signs rather than speech, (2) signing systems are used inconsistently by teachers, and (3) signing systems often unintentionally exhibit features of natural signed grammar, leading to input that does not accurately convey spoken languages, which is the original intention of these systems. Instead, the authors advocate for a return to the use of natural signed languages in classrooms educating deaf children, with creative uses of interpretation to provide those students who may prefer or benefit from spoken English with its presence in the classroom. In addition, we note ways in which future research may explore how natural sign languages and deaf adults may benefit the educational experiences of deaf children.
Language sample analysis (LSA) has been called the “gold standard” for clinical language assessment with children learning more than one language. The research literature discussing this clinical tool with bilingual children has grown substantially in recent years. This article reviews and synthesizes the literature on LSA in order to provide guidance for clinicians seeking to utilize this tool with bilingual children. The focus is on oral narrative language samples, reflecting the currently available literature. The article reviews procedural considerations in eliciting and coding narratives with bilingual children and considers the evidence of effectiveness for different assessment purposes such as the identification of language disorders and the documentation of dual-language growth over time. Research findings are translated to clinical scenarios. Finally, gaps in the literature are identified.
Sign language use in the (re)habilitation of children with cochlear implants (CIs) remains a controversial issue. Concerns that signing impedes spoken language development are based on research comparing children exposed to spoken and signed language (bilinguals) to children exposed only to speech (monolinguals), although abundant research demonstrates that bilinguals and monolinguals differ in language development. We control for bilingualism effects by comparing bimodal bilingual (signing-speaking) children with CIs (BB-CI) to those with typical hearing (BB-TH). Each child had at least one Deaf parent and was exposed to ASL from birth. The BB-THs were exposed to English from birth by hearing family members, while the BB-CIs began English exposure after cochlear implantation around 22-months-of-age. Elicited speech samples were analyzed for accuracy of English grammatical morpheme production. Although there was a trend toward lower overall accuracy in the BB-CIs, this seemed driven by increased omission of the plural -s, suggesting an exaggerated role of perceptual salience in this group. Errors of commission were rare in both groups. Because both groups were bimodal bilinguals, trends toward group differences were likely caused by delayed exposure to spoken language or hearing through a CI, rather than sign language exposure.
Assessment is a major part of the United States schooling system. Legal requirements make assessment a large part of practitioner responsibilities. The significance of assessment is, even more, the case for special populations such as bilingual hearing and Deaf and Hard of Hearing students, groups that are often the target of concern for English language development delays, differences, and/or disorders. In this article, we discuss the issues around assessing the language of Deaf and Hard of Hearing bilingual students in the United States. We highlight parallels between Deaf Education and hearing bilingual education in regard to language assessment, as well as discuss important distinctions such as the placement of Deaf Education within Special Education and working with two or more language modalities (e.g., signed, spoken, and written). In addition, alternative language assessment practices are discussed. We close this article by proposing ways for practitioners to satisfy legal and field mandates to assess Deaf and Hard of Hearing students while also applying best practices for assessing language skills in bilingual populations.
Objective: To review the growth of a pediatric cochlear implant (CI) program at one large tertiary care medical center over a 25-year period in order to (1) describe the population of pediatric cochlear implant recipients, (2) document word recognition outcomes, and (3) describe changes in candidacy criteria over time.
Design: A retrospective review of population demographics and trends included etiology of hearing loss, device use and type, expansion of inclusion criteria, and word recognition outcomes.
Results: Ninety-one percent of the children studied were from North Carolina and reflect the ethnic distribution of the state. The population is heterogeneous for etiology and the presence of syndromes and/or co-morbidities. A trend of lower age of implant and greater residual hearing was documented overtime. As a single metric, monosyllable word recognition for the children assessed is good with the mean CNC test word score of 76.13% (range 0–100, S.D = 19.94).
Conclusions: Pediatric cochlear implant candidacy criteria have evolved despite no change in FDA-approved regulations since 2000. There is great diversity among recipients but word recognition outcomes are generally good in this population and have improved over time. Professionals who may refer children for cochlear implantation should be aware of current clinical practices and general outcomes.
Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) children need to master at least one language (spoken or signed) to reach their full potential. Providing access to a natural sign language supports this goal. Despite evidence that natural sign languages are beneficial to DHH children, many researchers and practitioners advise families to focus exclusively on spoken language. We critique the Pediatrics article ‘Early Sign Language Exposure and Cochlear Implants’ (Geers et al., 2017) as an example of research that makes unsupported claims against the inclusion of natural sign languages. We refute claims that (1) there are harmful effects of sign language and (2) that listening and spoken language are necessary for optimal development of deaf children. While practical challenges remain (and are discussed) for providing a sign language-rich environment, research evidence suggests that such challenges are worth tackling in light of natural sign languages providing a host of benefits for DHH children – especially in the prevention and reduction of language deprivation.
Purpose:
Deaf children are frequently reported to be at risk for difficulties in executive function (EF); however, the literature is divided over whether these difficulties are the result of deafness itself or of delays/deficits in language that often co-occur with deafness. The purpose of this study is to discriminate these hypotheses by assessing EF in populations where the 2 accounts make contrasting predictions.
Method:
We use a between-groups design involving 116 children, ages 5-12 years, across 3 groups: (a) participants with normal hearing (n = 45), (b) deaf native signers who had access to American Sign Language from birth (n = 45), and (c) oral cochlear implant users who did not have full access to language prior to cochlear implantation (n = 26). Measures include both parent report and performance-based assessments of EF.
Results:
Parent report results suggest that early access to language has a stronger impact on EF than early access to sound. Performance-based results trended in a similar direction, but no between-group differences were significant.
Conclusions:
These results indicate that healthy EF skills do not require audition and therefore that difficulties in this domain do not result primarily from a lack of auditory experience. Instead, results are consistent with the hypothesis that language proficiency, whether in sign or speech, is crucial for the development of healthy EF. Further research is needed to test whether sign language proficiency also confers benefits to deaf children from hearing families.
Purpose:
The Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn; Scarborough, 1990) is widely used to measure syntax production in young children. The goal of this article is to promote greater clarity and consistency in machine and hand scoring by presenting a revised version of the IPSyn (IPSyn-R) and comparing it with the original IPSyn (IPSyn-O).
Method:
Longitudinal syntax production in 10 30- and 42-month-old typically developing children drawn from the Child Language Data Exchange System (MacWhinney, 2000) Weismer corpus was examined, using both the IPSyn-O and the IPSyn-R.
Results:
The IPSyn-R provided nearly identical scores to the IPSyn-O with the exception of scores affected primarily by 1 modified noun phrase structure. Structures ranked as more advanced were produced less frequently. The results also reveal which of the IPSyn-R's 59 structures were most and least likely to be produced by this sample at these ages.
Conclusions:
The qualitative and quantitative differences between the IPSyn-O and the IPSyn-R are relatively minor. The IPSyn-R can make it easier to score the IPSyn, both by clinicians and researchers, and facilitate the IPSyn's move to machine scoring of language samples.
Research interest in heritage speakers and their patterns of bilingual development has grown substantially over the last decade, prompting sign language researchers to consider how the concepts of heritage language and heritage speakers apply in the Deaf community. This overview builds on previous proposals that ASL and other natural sign languages qualify as heritage languages for many individuals raised in Deaf, signing families. Specifically, we submit that Codas and Deaf cochlear implant users from Deaf families (DDCI) are heritage signers, parallel to heritage speakers in spoken language communities. We support this proposal by pointing out developmental patterns that are similar across children who are bilingual in a minority home language and a dominant majority language, regardless of modality. This overview also addresses the complex challenge of determining whether unique patterns displayed by heritage speakers/signers in their home language reflect incomplete acquisition, acquisition followed by attrition, or divergent acquisition.The themes summarized in this article serve as an introduction to subsequent papers in this special issue on heritage signers.
A number of language acquisition patterns have been identified in the signing of a newly designated population of bimodal bilingual individuals-heritage signers. This article examines subject-referent tracking forms in the ASL (American Sign Language) narratives of six elementary-school-aged, native-signing, bimodal bilinguals made at different ages (5;02-6;09 and 6;07-8;02).These narratives are compared to those created by six Deaf counterparts (5;05-7;10) in a video-retelling task. The results show that, just as their Deaf peers, early bimodal bilinguals prefer nominal forms (for referent introduction and reintroduction) and null forms (for maintenance). However, the bimodal bilingual children increasingly diverge from their Deaf counterparts in the use of overt and fingerspelled forms.The increasing use of overt forms for maintenance and reintroduction is similar to patterns previously documented for heritage speakers, young unimodal bilinguals, and late bimodal bilinguals. Four of the six bimodal bilinguals showed an increased use of fingerspelled nominal forms for all discourse functions, yet these forms were rarely used by the Deaf children and instead were reserved for referent introduction. The greater prevalence of fingerspelled forms by the young bimodal bilinguals appears to resemble code switching, signaling both a shift in language dominance and an emergent literacy in their spoken language. The results suggest that early bimodal bilinguals are more similar to heritage speakers than to their Deaf-signing peers, providing further justification for reserving heritage signer status for Deaf-parented bimodal bilinguals who can hear.
The hypothesis that children surpass adults in long-term second-language proficiency is accepted as evidence for a critical period for language. However, the scope and nature of a critical period for language has been the subject of considerable debate. The controversy centers on whether the age-related decline in ultimate second-language proficiency is evidence for a critical period or something else. Here we argue that age-onset effects for first vs. second language outcome are largely different. We show this by examining psycholinguistic studies of ultimate attainment in L2 vs. L1 learners, longitudinal studies of adolescent L1 acquisition, and neurolinguistic studies of late L2 and L1 learners. This research indicates that L1 acquisition arises from post-natal brain development interacting with environmental linguistic experience. By contrast, L2 learning after early childhood is scaffolded by prior childhood L1 acquisition, both linguistically and neurally, making it a less clear test of the critical period for language.
A mother whose child has had a cochlear implant tells Laura Mauldin why enrollment in the sign language program at her daughter’s school is plummeting: “The majority of parents want their kids to talk.” Some parents, however, feel very differently, because “curing” deafness with cochlear implants is uncertain, difficult, and freighted with judgment about what is normal, acceptable, and right. Made to Hear sensitively and thoroughly considers the structure and culture of the systems we have built to make deaf children hear. Based on accounts of and interviews with families who adopt the cochlear implant for their deaf children, this book describes the experiences of mothers as they navigate the health care system, their interactions with the professionals who work with them, and the influence of neuroscience on the process. Though Mauldin explains the politics surrounding the issue, her focus is not on the controversy of whether to have a cochlear implant but on the long-term, multiyear undertaking of implantation. Her study provides a nuanced view of a social context in which science, technology, and medicine are trusted to vanquish disability-and in which mothers are expected to use these tools. Made to Hear reveals that implantation has the central goal of controlling the development of the deaf child’s brain by boosting synapses for spoken language and inhibiting those for sign language, placing the politics of neuroscience front and center. Examining the consequences of cochlear implant technology for professionals and parents of deaf children, Made to Hear shows how certain neuroscientific claims about neuroplasticity, deafness, and language are deployed to encourage compliance with medical technology. © 2016 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved.
Objectives
This study examined the extent to which the language performance of school-age bilingual children is impacted by the amount of language exposure they have received in each language versus the timing of this exposure in terms of the age of first exposure (AoE).
Methods
Receptive and expressive vocabulary and word morphology measures were administered in both languages to school-age simultaneous and sequential learners of French (other language English), and to their monolingual counterparts.
Data and analysis
The study included 64 children in first grade and 68 children in third grade in French schools in Montreal. Within each grade level, simultaneous bilinguals, sequential bilinguals, and monolinguals were equivalent in age, nonverbal cognition and socio-economic status (maternal education). Detailed information on previous language exposure was gathered by parent report.
Conclusions
Simultaneous bilinguals performed somewhat better than sequential bilinguals; however both groups overall performed significantly more poorly than monolinguals. Differences in performance between simultaneous and sequential bilinguals were mediated by differences in amount, not timing, of exposure. Sequential learners in grade 1 required lower amounts of input to reach high French scores than did their simultaneous counterparts; sequential and simultaneous learners in grade 3 did not differ in this respect. This finding suggests that the recency of bilingual exposure is a significant determiner of the rate of second language learning. The amount of exposure to each language since birth predicted performance in each language of the bilingual children.
Originality
Bilingual children with different AoEs were compared while also controlling for differences in amount of exposure.
Significant implications
The results call into question the traditional separation between simultaneous and sequential bilinguals and shows that an early start of bilingualism does not in and of itself predict better performance or performance within the monolingual range. Better performance was more strongly related to amount than timing of exposure.
This article addresses the special challenges associated with collecting longitudinal samples of the spontaneous sign language and spoken language production by young bimodal bilingual children. We discuss the methods used in our study of children in the United States and Brazil. Since one of our goals is to observe both sign language and speech, as well as any language mixing, it is important for us to address issues of language choice and techniques for directing the child participant toward primary use of the target language in each session. Suggestions and guidelines for achieving this in effective yet respectful ways are presented. We are especially dependent on the participation, flexibility, and direction of our participant children's parents, who work with us to elicit samples that are genuinely representative of their children's linguistic abilities. We illustrate our procedures for training parents and other interlocutors in data-collection sessions. In return for their generous participation in our research, we address parents' questions and concerns about language development, especially in bimodal bilingual contexts. We take very seriously the need to negotiate with participants regarding their expectations for the use of the data they provide, and we abide by their wishes in this matter. The strategies presented here improve the quality of the investigations we can conduct by making the experiences of the participant families as pleasant as possible.
In this article, we review the advantages of language sample analysis (LSA) and explain how clinicians can make the process of LSA faster, easier, more accurate, and more insightful than LSA done "by hand" by using free, available software programs such as Computerized Language Analysis (CLAN). We demonstrate the utility of CLAN analysis in studying the expressive language of a very large cohort of 24-month-old toddlers tracked in a recent longitudinal study; toddlers in particular are the most likely group to receive LSA by clinicians, but existing reference "norms" for this population are based on fairly small cohorts of children. Finally, we demonstrate how a CLAN utility such as KidEval can now extract potential normative data from the very large number of corpora now available for English and other languages at the Child Language Data Exchange System project site. Most of the LSA measures that we studied appear to show developmental profiles suggesting that they may be of specifically higher value for children at certain ages, because they do not show an even developmental trajectory from 2 to 7 years of age.
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This study evaluates the effects of Age of Exposure to English (AoEE) and Current Input/Output on language performance in a cross-sectional sample of Spanish–English bilingual children. First- (
N
= 586) and third-graders (
N
= 298) who spanned a wide range of bilingual language experience participated. Parents and teachers provided information about English and Spanish language use. Short tests of semantic and morphosyntactic development in Spanish and English were used to quantify children's knowledge of each language. There were significant interactions between AoEE and Current Input/Output for children at third grade in English and in both grades for Spanish. In English, the relationship between AoEE and language scores were linear for first- and third-graders. In Spanish a nonlinear relationship was observed. We discuss how much of the variance was accounted for by AoEE and Current Input/Output.
There has been a scarcity of studies exploring the influence of students’ American Sign Language (ASL) proficiency on their
academic achievement in ASL/English bilingual programs. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of ASL proficiency
on reading comprehension skills and academic achievement of 85 deaf or hard-of-hearing signing students. Two subgroups, differing
in ASL proficiency, were compared on the Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress and the reading comprehension
subtest of the Stanford Achievement Test, 10th edition. Findings suggested that students highly proficient in ASL outperformed
their less proficient peers in nationally standardized measures of reading comprehension, English language use, and mathematics.
Moreover, a regression model consisting of 5 predictors including variables regarding education, hearing devices, and secondary
disabilities as well as ASL proficiency and home language showed that ASL proficiency was the single variable significantly
predicting results on all outcome measures. This study calls for a paradigm shift in thinking about deaf education by focusing
on characteristics shared among successful deaf signing readers, specifically ASL fluency.
Purpose: To document the emergence of utterance length measured in both words and morphemes in children with severe and/or profound hearing loss who received cochlear implants by age 3. Method: A set of 49 conversational speech samples were evoked from 10 children (8 females, 2 males) with cochlear implants and transcribed and analyzed using SALT software. Raw MLU values measured in both words and morphemes were examined relative to both chronological age and post-implantation age (length of implant experience). MLU values were also compared to those of children with typical hearing by converting raw values to z-scores using data reported in Rice and colleagues (2010). Results: As with children with typical hearing, MLU values increased over time overall and for individual participants relative to both chronological age and post-implantation age. Z-score values were higher relative to post-implantation age than chronological age. Almost half of the MLU values were within 1.5 standard deviations of the mean for subjects with typical hearing when post-implantation age was used as the reference point. As the children gained experience with their implants, their Z-scores appeared to improve relative to children with typical hearing. Conclusions: MLU values in children with cochlear implants demonstrate delayed onset but appear to improve over time and may catch up with or approximate those of peers with typical hearing in many cases.
Objectives:
Cochlear implants (CIs) can considerably improve the oral language of prelingual hearing-impaired children. However, because most studies have been performed with English speaking children, available information regarding Persian-speaking children is scarce. Therefore, this study compared measures of lexical diversity (numbers of different words and total words), and syntactic complexity (mean length of utterance) in Persian-speaking children with and without CIs.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study with 20 children with CIs and 20 typically developing children was conducted. To collect the data, the children's language samples were gathered via picture descriptions. The first 50 utterances were analyzed.
Results:
All measures were significantly different between children with CIs and their typically developing age-matched peers, whereas no differences between children with CIs and their typically developing hearing age-matched peers were detected (p<0.05).
Conclusions:
CIs have been recognized to be one of the most beneficial rehabilitation prostheses because they help children to acquire speech and language abilities similar to their typically developing hearing age-matched peers. After implantation, the performance of children with CIs is similar to the performance of normal children with the same hearing experience. The duration of the hearing experience after the implantation is an important factor for determining the development of speech and language abilities.
In this article, Nelson Flores and Jonathan Rosa critique appropriateness-based approaches to language diversity in education. Those who subscribe to these approaches conceptualize standardized linguistic practices as an objective set of linguistic forms that are appropriate for an academic setting. In contrast, Flores and Rosa highlight the raciolinguistic ideologies through which racialized bodies come to be constructed as engaging in appropriately academic linguistic practices. Drawing on theories of language ideologies and racialization, they offer a perspective from which students classified as long-term English learners, heritage language learners, and Standard English learners can be understood to inhabit a shared racial positioning that frames their linguistic practices as deficient regardless of how closely they follow supposed rules of appropriateness. The authors illustrate how appropriatenessbased approaches to language education are implicated in the reproduction of racial normativity by expecting language-minoritized students to model their linguistic practices after the white speaking subject despite the fact that the white listening subject continues to perceive their language use in racialized ways. They conclude with a call for reframing language diversity in education away from a discourse of appropriateness toward one that seeks to denaturalize standardized linguistic categories.