Review article
SIGN LANGUAGE AND SUCCESSFUL BILINGUAL DEVELOPMENT OF DEAF CHILDREN
Ronnie B. WILBUR
Abstract
This paper reviews research on language development of deaf
children, comparing those who have early access to natural sign
language with those who do not. Early learning of sign language
does not create concerns for the child's development of other
languages, speech, reading, or other cognitive skills. In fact, it
can contribute directly to establishment of more of the high-level
skills needed for successful bilingual development. The global
benefit of learning a sign language as a first language is that in
the resulting bilingual communicative setting, teachers and
learners can take advantage of one language to assist in
acquiring the other and in the transfer of general knowledge. As
part of this discussion, English and ASL are compared as
representatives of spoken and signed natural languages to
provide explicit examples of their similarities and differences.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
19890
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2001.
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