Sign Language Acquisition of Deaf Children and Their Educational Intervention

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The Purpose of this study is, first, to investigate the acquisition processes of sign language in deaf children and, second, to develop the program through. which deaf children and their family members can learn sign language. First, we observed the developmental processes of sign. language as a first language in. a deaf child. Interactions between the deaf children and her mother in a natural setting were video-recorded once a month. The focus of analysis was put on the book sharing situation. In that situation, mother must control the child's eye direction to either the book read or the mother's signing. It was shown that the deaf signing mother used several strategies, such as displacing hands onto the book while signing, molding signs with the child' hands, using of other objects to convey meanings to the child, etc. Next, we developed the program through which deaf children and their hearing family members can learn sign language in their home. More concretely, we made the video materials of some books. We delivered those materials to each family of deaf children. Thereafter, we interviewed the mothers how those materials were used in their home, whether those materials supported their learning sign language. It was reported that the deaf children watched the video tapes very often in their home, referred the book while watching the comparable video, and talked about the contents with their mother after watching or reading the book.