MISINFORMATION REGARDING THE DEAF CHILD'S EDUCATIONAL SUCCESS

BY J. FREEMAN KING, ED.D.

Even though it is imperative that education addresses the numerous consequences that are promulgated when a child is a victim of bullying, the problem of parents being bullied by a well-intentioned education system regarding the deaf child's educational success is often ignored.

When research and good practices are intentionally or inadvertently ignored by professionals and parents, it is easy to provide misinformation that supports claims against the inclusion of natural sign language and encourage families of deaf children to focus exclusively on spoken language. An example of these unsupported claims can be found in an article that appears in Pediatrics (2017) by Geers and others entitled Early Sign Language Exposure and Cochlear Implants. Even though a vast amount of evidence exists that supports natural sign languages as being beneficial to the deaf child, these researchers claim there are harmful effects of sign language and that listening and spoken language are necessary for optimal development of deaf children. Is this misinformation that is being provided parents not an example of parental bullying? 

 Most hearing children are born into a world inundated with accessible language input, with language acquisition beginning at birth and mastery of their native language established by approximately age five. However, it is important to note that children who are deaf enter a world where language access is problematic. This results in adverse consequences in other developmental domains that depend on language (cognition, social-emotional skills, school readiness, and academic outcomes). Lacking fully accessible language is termed language deprivation. 

There has been much progress over the last number of years to minimize the prevalence and severity of this delayed or incomplete mastery of language. Concurrently, deaf children are still significantly underperforming on standardized assessments of speech and spoken language.

Families continue to be advised and given misleading information by professionals who insist that they not use sign language with their deaf children despite the apparent underperformance of speech and spoken language. Claims that deaf children are better off without access to sign language and that they are at great risk if they do not have access to spoken language are examples of misinformation that are akin to parental bullying.

Deaf children would be better served if parents and professionals together aimed for what linguistic researchers call global language proficiency – that a deaf child's mastery of at least one language be prioritized over the child's mastery of any specific language. For many deaf children, this is likely best achieved by providing access to a natural sign language.

The most important educational outcome for a deaf child is that he/she develop age-appropriate mastery of at least one language, spoken or signed. For many children, this outcome is more likely to be achieved through a natural sign language because of the fact that the deaf child is by nature a visual learner. Does it not make educational sense to focus on the child's strength, vision, rather than their weakness, hearing, in the pursuit of this educational outcome? With or without cochlear implants or other hearing enhancements, the deaf child is primarily a visual learner. If the children who do not successfully master a I spoken language succeed in mastering sign language, then their subsequent cognitive, academic, and social-emotional development is at no more risk of suboptimal outcomes than hearing children with full access to spoken language, if their education is in a fully-accessible language environment. Deaf children learning sign language will not prevent them from learning spoken language skills. 

The consistent effort by various professionals associated with the education of the deaf to advocate against exposure to sign language and focus on spoken language only can be damaging to many deaf children, because the critical period (0 to age 5) for language acquisition exists. Because of this critical period for language development, the highest priority must be to provide a deaf child with whatever type of linguistic input is most accessible and most likely to result in age-appropriate language mastery; for the deaf child this means taking advantage of his/her strength, vision, and not playing to their weakness, hearing.

Parents must make decisions on behalf of their child, and families of deaf children may prefer for their child to be raised in a manner that does not include a natural sign language. Therefore, it is incumbent on professionals who serve families to provide guidance to parents to help them make fully-informed decisions, and for the parents not to be given misleading information that is not fully research-based. The ignorance of the professional can inadvertently lead the parents into making ill-formed decisions that can put their child at risk of language deprivation. Parents should not be bullied into making decisions that are driven by theoretical arguments, practical concerns, misconceptions about sign language, and social biases (the misplaced prestige of spoken language relative to sign language).

There exist current research findings indicating that fully accessible language experiences during early childhood are the key to empowering deaf children's development potential. Certainly, language acquisition is a human right that transcends philosophical biases and misinformation. This misinformation that is shared with parents of deaf children by poorly informed and inadequately trained professionals becomes a form of bullying in which parents and their children become victims of a well-intentioned educational system. •

SOUND ADVICE: Parents should not be bullied into making decisions that are driven by theoretical arguments, practical concerns, misconceptions about sign language, and social biases.

NOT JUST SPEECH, LANGUAGE : HOW TO AVOID BEING BULLIED

To assist parents in not being bullied or following misinformation that might be suggested by some professionals related to the use of sign language, the following suggestions are offered (borrowed from the excellent article, Deaf Children Need Language, Not Just Speech, written by M. Hall, W. Hall and N. Caselli that appeared in First Language, 2019):

1. Know that there is tremendous variability and unpredictability in outcomes of spoken language-only approaches.

2. Even with early access to high-quality interventions in a spoken language-only approach, there remains a significant risk that deaf children will not attain even minimal fluency in spoken language and experience language deprivation.

3. Given this risk, excluding sign language during the critical period of language acquisition puts children at risk of never mastering any language — spoken or signed.

4. Concordantly, approaches that actively exclude sign language carry a high risk of delays or disturbances in cognitive, academic, and socio-emotional development.

5.There is no evidence that sign language exposure harms spoken language acquisition; such claims (e.g., Geers et al., 2017, Early Sign Language Exposure and Cochlear Implants) are not justified by the available data.

6. The limited existing empirical evidence suggests that under optimal exposure conditions, sign language benefits spoken language acquisition.

7. Providing access to a natural sign language increases a deaf child's chances of attaining global language proficiency — which in turn promotes healthy outcomes in cognitive, academic, and socio-emotional development.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: J. Freeman King, Ed.D. is Professor, Deaf Education, Utah State University in Logan, Utah