- Short Contents
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- The Promises (?) of Deaf Education:: From Research to Practice and Back Again
- The History of Language and Communication Issues in Deaf Education
- Legal Advocacy for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children in Education
- Preparing Teachers of Students Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
- Effective Instruction for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students:: Teaching Strategies, School Settings, and Student Characteristics
- Supporting Students in General Education Classrooms
- Current and Future Technologies in the Education of Deaf Students
- Evidence-based Curricula and Practices That Support Development of Reading Skills
- Will Cochlear Implants Close the Reading Achievement Gap for Deaf Students?
- The Demands of Writing and the Deaf Writer
- Mathematics Instruction and Learning of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students:: What Do We Know? Where Do We Go?
- Deaf Children with Severe Multiple Disabilities:: Etiologies, Intervention, and Assessment
- Reflections on Identity
- Deaf Studies in the 21st Century:: “Deaf-gain” and the Future of Human Diversity
- Cochlear Implants:: Family and Young People’s Perspectives
- The Impact of Early Identification of Deafness on Hearing Parents
- How Does Speech Intelligibility Affect Self and Others’ Perceptions of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing People?
- Emerging Sign Languages
- Early Language Acquisition and Adult Language Ability:: What Sign Language Reveals About the Critical Period for Language
- Communication Choices and Outcomes During the Early Years:: An Assessment and Evidence-based Approach
- Early Communication in Sign and Speech
- Language Acquisition and Critical Periods for Children Using Cochlear Implants
- Newborn Screening and Earlier Intervention with Deaf Children:: Issues for the Developing World
- Prelinguistic Vocalizations in Infants and Toddlers with Hearing Loss:: Identifying and Stimulating Auditory-guided Speech Development
- Children and Youth Who Are Hard of Hearing:: Hearing Accessibility, Acoustical Context, and Development
- Performance Outcomes for Adult Cochlear Implant Users
- Play and Theory of Mind:: Indicators and Engines of Early Cognitive Growth
- Learning Disabilities in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children
- Executive Function, Cognitive Control, and Sequence Learning in Deaf Children with Cochlear Implants
- Working Memory, Deafness, and Sign Language
- Paradigm Shifts, Difficult Truths, and an Increasing Knowledge Base in Deaf Education
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter examines the critical period for language through the prism of deafness. The first topic is the concept of critical periods, followed by a summary of research investigating age of acquisition effects on the outcome of second-language learning (L2). The phenomenon of late first-language (L1) acquisition among deaf children is then described. The focus of this chapter is on a series of studies that compare and contrast the long-range outcome of L1 and L2 acquisition in relation to age of acquisition. The effects of late L1 acquisition are greater than those for L2 learning. The effects include a compromised ability to process and understand all forms of language. Late L1 acquisition has deleterious effects on the ability to learn other languages and on reading development. The findings come from experiments in American Sign Language (ASL) and English using a variety of psycholinguistic paradigms across levels of linguistic structure and include narrative comprehension and shadowing, sentence shadowing and memory, grammatical judgment, and reading comprehension. How these psycholinguistic phenomena illuminate the critical period for language is then discussed.
Keywords: critical period, sign language, ASL, language acquisition, second-language acquisition, reading, development, psycholinguistics, comprehension, phonology, grammar, education, early intervention, Wild Boy of Aveyron, Itard
Rachel I. Mayberry Department of Linguistics & Center for Research in Language University of California, San Diego La Jolla, CA
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- Short Contents
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- The Promises (?) of Deaf Education:: From Research to Practice and Back Again
- The History of Language and Communication Issues in Deaf Education
- Legal Advocacy for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children in Education
- Preparing Teachers of Students Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
- Effective Instruction for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students:: Teaching Strategies, School Settings, and Student Characteristics
- Supporting Students in General Education Classrooms
- Current and Future Technologies in the Education of Deaf Students
- Evidence-based Curricula and Practices That Support Development of Reading Skills
- Will Cochlear Implants Close the Reading Achievement Gap for Deaf Students?
- The Demands of Writing and the Deaf Writer
- Mathematics Instruction and Learning of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students:: What Do We Know? Where Do We Go?
- Deaf Children with Severe Multiple Disabilities:: Etiologies, Intervention, and Assessment
- Reflections on Identity
- Deaf Studies in the 21st Century:: “Deaf-gain” and the Future of Human Diversity
- Cochlear Implants:: Family and Young People’s Perspectives
- The Impact of Early Identification of Deafness on Hearing Parents
- How Does Speech Intelligibility Affect Self and Others’ Perceptions of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing People?
- Emerging Sign Languages
- Early Language Acquisition and Adult Language Ability:: What Sign Language Reveals About the Critical Period for Language
- Communication Choices and Outcomes During the Early Years:: An Assessment and Evidence-based Approach
- Early Communication in Sign and Speech
- Language Acquisition and Critical Periods for Children Using Cochlear Implants
- Newborn Screening and Earlier Intervention with Deaf Children:: Issues for the Developing World
- Prelinguistic Vocalizations in Infants and Toddlers with Hearing Loss:: Identifying and Stimulating Auditory-guided Speech Development
- Children and Youth Who Are Hard of Hearing:: Hearing Accessibility, Acoustical Context, and Development
- Performance Outcomes for Adult Cochlear Implant Users
- Play and Theory of Mind:: Indicators and Engines of Early Cognitive Growth
- Learning Disabilities in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children
- Executive Function, Cognitive Control, and Sequence Learning in Deaf Children with Cochlear Implants
- Working Memory, Deafness, and Sign Language
- Paradigm Shifts, Difficult Truths, and an Increasing Knowledge Base in Deaf Education
- Author Index
- Subject Index