LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN YOUNG ORAL DEAF CHILDREN

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The objectives of the proposed research are to provide detailed longitudinal data on the course of language acquisition in a special population: deaf children learning spoken English. Four subjects have been videotaped in interaction with their mothers during the period of early language acquisition, from 12 to 48 months. In two cases, the children are from profoundly deaf families using spoken English, and virtually no studies have been done with this population. It is particularly important to understand the process by which the children gain access to the primary data for the acquisition of English, and the special provisions made by the mothers in adjusting to their children's hearing loss. The role of gestural communication in mother and child, and how it relates to the acquisition of the spoken language, is the special focus of the work. In addition, the research will provide an important database on the acquisition of English by deaf children in the early years, a unique one in the case of the children with profoundly deaf mothers. The videotapes are to be coded to record the gestures and speech of mother and child, the eye-gaze direction, and the context of conversation, with the codes entered directly into the computer. Then both gestures and speech will be coded for semantic, syntactic and pragmatic forms, and finally in terms of their status as imitations, glosses, or successful/non- successful communications. It is expected that the results will be of value in advising parents of deaf children and in the design of preschool curricula for this population.