The Deaf Way: Perspectives from the International Conference on Deaf Culture

Sign Language Acquisition Among Deaf Children with Deaf Parents

JEAN-FRAN 564 THE DEAF WAY ~ The Deaf Child in the Family Sophie signs DOG. Sophie shows dog's location (outside). FIGURE 3: Examples of successful communication. this stage articulate words incorrectly before they learn the correct way. The bad sign language of a deaf child is the same as the bad spoken language of a fourteen-month-old hearing child. Be patient! Your child will learn to do the signs correctly after a while." The pictures in Figure 3 suggest how successful communication through signseven when the signs are clumsily produced-can and should be positively reinforced by parents. You have already seen Sophie signing DOG. The situation was that Sophie's mother had carried her to the kitchen window. After signing DOG, Sophie pointed through the window. Her mother-having seen Sophie say that the dog was outsidewent to get the dog and bring it into the house. So Sophie was able to say something in sign language and thereby elicit an appropriate response. There was an immediate action after she produced a sign. Reinforcement through appropriate response by an adult is very important for the successful building of sign language in a deaf child. Language is best built by connecting it to the fulfillment of the needs and requests of the child. This is fundamental. I am not going to discuss all the controversies regarding the morality or immorality of various educational approaches. I am only showing how sign language is built with a deaf child and how it is best done through actions reinforced by appropriate reactions. The left image in Figure 4 shows Sophie reproducing wrongly the sign CAT. She puts her index finger close to her nose, showing that she is aware of the location of the beginning of the sign, but she does not produce the rest of the sign as it is done in French Sign Language. Nevertheless, this is typical of how deaf infants begin to learn sign language. They notice correctly some aspect of the sign and produce that aspect, but not the entire sign as they will later on. The correct way to sign CAT in French Sign Language is shown on the right side of Figure 4. One day, Sophie's mother asked Sophie, "Where is the cat book?" Although Sophie did not produce the sign accurately, she clearly understood the sign as her mother produced it, because she immediately went to look for the book in which a cat appears as a character. She received a message and acted appropriately in response. The sense of mastery that accompanied this newfound ability could be seen in Sophie's happy expression as she carried the book to her mother. One way of looking at this event is that mastery of language is helping to build Sophie's personality and vice versa. Another example of Sophie's attempts at making signs can be seen in Figure 5. After Sophie watched her mother sign BOAT, she responded with the same sign not made as well. Elsewhere on the videotape, Sophie is shown beginning to make her first sentence, which was, "The dog is sitting." In several other instances, she appears to Sign Language Acquisition Among Deaf Children with Deaf Parents Sophie's sign for CAT (left), shows an awareness of the location of the beginning of the sign. FIGURE 4: Sophie's sign and LSF sign for CAT. FIGURE 5: Sophie signs BOAT in her own way. CAT in French Sign Language (LSF) be using two or more signs to begin to build sentences. She still does not make them well, but she clearly demonstrates in these efforts that she is understanding much of the meaning being communicated by her mother's signing. When a child-deaf or hearing-begins to walk, he or she starts clumsily, walking correctly only after much trial and error. Similarly, no child knows from the outset how to dress himself or herself correctly. Very young children button their clothes slowly and laboriously. After a while, however, they start to get the hang of it. We could add to these skills others, such as those involved in personal hygiene and manners while eating. The process of learning those skills, too, begins with a clumsy stage that leads in time to mastery. Language development-spoken or signed-follows a similar evolution. A family's communication during mealtimes sometimes includes examples of trialand -error language use...