SASL Newsletter - Winter 2016 Issue | Page 10

By Samuel J . Supalla

Citation

Humphries , T ., Kushalnagar , P ., Mathur , G ., Napoli , D . J ., Padden , C ., Rathmann , C ., & Smith , S . R . ( 2012 ). Language acquisition for deaf children : Reducing the harms of zero tolerance to the use of alternative approaches . Harm Reduction Journal , 9 ( 16 ), 1-9 .

Abstract

Children acquire language without instruction as long as they are regularly and meaningfully engaged with an accessible human language . Today , 80 % of children born deaf in the developed world are implanted with cochlear devices that allow some of them access to sound in their early years , which helps them to develop speech . However , because of brain plasticity changes during early childhood , children who have not acquired a first language in the early years might never be completely fluent in any language . If they miss this critical period for exposure to a natural language , their subsequent development of the cognitive activities that rely on a solid first language might be underdeveloped , such as literacy , memory organization , and number manipulation . An alternative to speech-exclusive approaches to language acquisition exists in the use of sign languages such as American Sign Language ( ASL ), where acquiring a sign language is subject to the same time constraints of spoken language development . Unfortunately , so far , these alternatives are caught up in an " either - or " dilemma , leading to a highly polarized conflict about which system families should choose for their children , with little tolerance for alternatives by either side of the debate and widespread misinformation about the evidence and implications for or against either approach . The success rate with cochlear implants is highly variable . This issue is still debated , and as far as we know , there are no reliable predictors for success with implants . Yet families are often advised not to expose their child to sign language . Here absolute positions based on ideology create pressures for parents that might jeopardize the real developmental needs of deaf children . What we do know is that cochlear implants do not offer accessible language to many deaf children . By the time it is clear that the deaf child is not acquiring spoken language with cochlear devices , it might already be past the critical period , and the child runs the risk of becoming linguistically deprived . Linguistic deprivation constitutes multiple personal harms as well as harms to society ( in terms of costs to our medical systems and in loss of potential productive societal participation ).