[inaudible]. My teacher thought I was smarter than I was, so I was. Teachers play such an important role in the development of children's world view, and have to be aware of how language is an essential way that children understand their roles. In this video, we will focus on early communication development considering typical language development, early communication skills, typical early sign language development, and the role of language in learning. It is important to note that sign languages and spoken languages like English and Swahili-Zulu, are both recognized as formal languages with distinct linguistic structures and features. In 2016, the World Health Organization revealed that 466 million people live with disabling hearing loss worldwide. Thirty two million of these people are children. In addition, approximately 90 to 95 percent of children with hearing loss are born into hearing families. We recognize that these children may learn sign language as well as their families home language, thus possibly multiple languages. They may be exposed to a specific family cultural background, a hearing communication sitting at home, a deaf culture at school. It is therefore important for us to consider a bilingual, bi-cultural approach to the education of these children. During typical language development, children's brains develop and establish foundational pathways for communication and other skills, like motor skills. This happens during the early years of their lives, areas of the brain that were stimulated through play and interaction with the environment and caregivers develop our language and cognitive skills are acquired. For example, the signing child using vision to access language has a bigger visual cortex than the verbal or adult-child using the auditory pathway to access language. Children with hearing loss acquiring spoken language will use both auditory and visual pathways to access language centers and acquire verbal language. Those children acquiring sign language will use visual pathways to access the same language centers and acquire sign language. Recent studies have shown that there are no significant differences in the cortical language centers for signing and verbal children. Studies show that language learning is based on the experiences of the child. The language emerges from the natural interactions between caregivers and their children. Any form of language consistently used around the child will provide the input needed to the brain to learn the basics of communication. Language is not specifically taught. Hearing children are exposed to language in their every day different listening environments. They're able to hear conversations between their caregivers, peers, and teachers. They're also exposed to spoken language on the radio, TV, and music. Exposure to this language-rich listening environment allows hearing children many opportunities for incidental language learning that deaf and hard-of hearing children do not have. However, when immersed in a rich visual environment, which includes the regular use of sign language, a deaf child will also develop language and communication typically. So to learn spoken and all sign language, children must hear or see the language, and have experience of the language used for communication. The more opportunities the child has to interact with other language users, the more linguistic input they're able to analyze and learn from. This will allow the development of vocabulary, grammar, narrative, and discourse skills, and other aspects of language function, facilitating the child's linguistic independence. Early language determination remains one of the best predictors of letter, vocabulary, reading, and mathematical skills because it sits the child on track to develop a strong language base. Children then use this language base to engage in learning at school. A language base with a sign or spoken is used to acquire further cognitive skills. Early communication skills are mostly nonverbal for all children. Children use their vision, touch, gesture, and vocalizations to make requests or protest, establish joint reference, and joint attention, and engage in joint activities. These skills may be shaped to develop a language base, sign or spoken language, and cognitive skills. Researchers have suggested that children have a critical period for language learning, which is from 0-3 years old. In this time, typically developing hearing children acquire language comprehension and explicit language so that they can use the communication abilities to learn. If language is not acquired during this time, intervention is needed, and after three years of age is usually focused on addressing language delay. This brings us to typical early sign language development. Deaf children of deaf mothers typically have age appropriate language levels at 18 months compared to children who have hearing loss with hearing parents. These signing children have acquired enough sign language comprehension and expressive language by 18 months to use their language-based for learning. Linguistic research shows that early exposure of deaf children to sign language will allow the brain to more easily become bilingual, and permit later academic success due to the development of the appropriate brain structures. American Sign Language or ASL studies, indicate that babies under 10 months already respond to a sound or visual phonology. Further research studies confirm that early exposure to sign language increases cognition and executive function skills, which are critical for memory and attention to language input. Importantly, those deaf children who have a strong sign language foundation also have a better development in both spoken and written language. It is clear from the research that early exposure to full accessible language is vital for all later academic development. Conversely, research also shows that hearing loss with no intervention will result in delayed language development, social isolation, academic underachievement, a higher risk for injuries, and increased poverty. In addition, language comprehension, expressive language, speech perception, speech production skills, and listening skills will also be delayed, as children with hearing loss have fewer opportunities for access to auditory information. So then, the evidence base endorses a rationale for supporting language acquisition in both sign language and spoken or verbal language for young children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Children can establish a strong language base through exposure to fully accessible sign or spoken language, or both. Successful language acquisition requires children to establish a language base in a language-rich environment, irrespective of the chosen language. In this video, we have shown that hearing and deaf children may follow typical development milestones for language acquisition, whether they use spoken or sign language. Early intervention and exposing deaf children to language-rich environments, allows the development of language base, which is used to acquire cognitive skills and promote academic success.
