Increasing Language Development in Deaf Children

Regardless of the communication approach you have chosen for your deaf child, there are steps you can take to increase development of language skills. The following are guidelines for interaction with your child:

First, eye contact with your child is essential. The importance of eye contact is obvious when using sign language, but it is equally important for auditory communication or a combination of the two. The child must be aware that you are communicating with him or her in order to learn from your use of language.

Second, children learn vocabulary best when they are discussing something shared with the communication partner, such as an object both can see or an event both experience. This type of interaction is called 'joint attention,' since they are attending to the same object or event. Early language learning focuses on naming objects, so make sure your child is looking at the object by pointing to the object or, preferably, placing your hand on the object. Once joint attention has been established, you can go on to discuss the name and characteristics of the object. Joint attention continues to be important as children learn more sophisticated words such as verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions. For example, you might say "I saw you put the book on the table" to describe the child's actions using a preposition.

This leads to my third guideline - as much as possible, follow your child's lead. Discuss what the child is looking at or doing already. Although sometimes it's necessary to draw attention to other objects or actions, it is much easier, and more effective for language development, to focus on what the child is attending to at that moment.

Finally, try to limit instructions or directions when interacting if your purpose is to develop language. Of course, these statements, called directives, are frequently needed for behavior management. However, if a large proportion of your interaction with the child consists of directives, you are losing the language-learning value of joint attention. Research suggests that a consistently high percentage of directives will slow the development of vocabulary in particular and language skills in general.

You don't have to be a speech pathologist or a specialist in hearing habilitation to help your deaf child learn language! By employing the guidelines above, you will increase the amount of time you and your child spend discussing shared experiences, and as a result your child's language skills will improve steadily.