Signers:
Ashley Greene-Woods
Natalie Delgado
Ashley Greene-Woods
Natalie Delgado
As a part of the coursework for Childhood Language Acquisition, taught by Dr. Clark, doctoral students Natalie Delgado and Ashley Greene-Woods produced several short video clips, less than a minute long, with information about natural language acquisition for Deaf children. These videos include reference lists at the end to help you to find more information!
Transcript:
Often, people are worried about Deaf children's language acquisition when compared to that of hearing children. Research shows that native signing Deaf children, when exposed to sign from birth, have better receptive language than hearing children until around the age of 2, then any differences are unnoticeable. After that, both groups of children will reach the same milestones. |
Transcript:
Several states across the United States have Deaf mentors in different settings with different purposes. Deaf mentors benefit both the Deaf child and the parents. Children with access to a Deaf mentor show improvement in receptive and expressive language. Parents who have access to Deaf mentors feel more supported, comfortable, and secure. |
Transcript:
Conversations with Deaf children often look different than conversations with hearing children. Hearing children can maintain a conversation without any eye contact. Effective conversations with Deaf children require that you maintain eye contact. Effective communication with Deaf children requires proper turn-taking. Breaking eye contact during conversation indicates the conversation has stopped. It is important to teach and encourage young children to practice turn-taking skills. |
Transcript:
If you have a Deaf child and you’re worried if your child will ever have language, don’t worry! It’s important to know that speech and language are not the same thing. Speech is where you are vocally producing sounds and words. Language is a form of communication using structured system of rules and can be spoken, written, or signed. Deaf children can have language without speech, or they can have both! |
Transcript:
Do you have a Deaf child? Go ahead and learn ASL! It is not important whether your skills are rudimentary or advanced, it’s important that you expose your child to sign! Exposure to sign from an early start will increase cognitive benefits for your child. As time goes on, your child’s sign language skills will skyrocket because of you! |
Transcript:
Often, many parents and educators wonder how to support Deaf children and their reading. Research shows that phonology can help reading skills for hearing children, but are Deaf children the same? Hearing children benefit from phonology and phonetic instruction, but research shows Deaf children do not need phonology to be successful readers. |