Resources: Parent and child sign language

Zoe Robertson of Deaf Association of Northern Ireland (DANI) describes the research behind Signing family. DANI is a regional body of the British Deaf Association (BDA) – the largest national charity run by Deaf British Sign Language (BSL) users for Deaf BSL users. The BDA envisions a world where Deaf Sign Language users have the same rights, responsibilities, opportunities and quality of life as everyone else.

There are 250,000 Deaf people in the UK whose first or preferred language is British Sign Language (BSL), as well as at least 300,000 non-Deaf BSL users.

The Signing family DVD presents information to parents of a Deaf child and Deaf parents on the benefits of Sign Language and Bilingualism. It is the first of its kind and is accessible in British Sign Language, Irish Sign Language and English voice-over and subtitles.

Signing and Oralism

Deaf Association of Northern Ireland (DANI) spent two years researching among the local Deaf community in Northern Ireland and liaising with academics carrying out the latest research in the Deaf studies departments at Bristol University and University College London.

Our findings revealed that many Deaf parents were unsure whether or not to use Sign Language with their hearing children. This was a concern as a Deaf parent’s pronunciation of English can be broken and unclear, making it a struggle for the hearing child to understand. The advice of those researchers working at universities in England was that the best language for Deaf parents to use is Sign Language, as it is the language they can most easily communicate in. The hearing child will naturally acquire Sign Language from their parents and from there they will begin to develop English through reading and participating in an English speaking environment, such as pre-school or with hearing relatives and friends. (Sign Language is a separate language from English with its own grammar and tenses.)

DANI also discovered that many hearing parents had been advised against using Sign Language with their Deaf children. Traditionally it has been the attitude of medical professionals that using Sign Language will interfere with the child’s development of English. This attitude came as a result of attempts to ‘restore deaf-mutes to society’ over a century ago. Advocates like Alexander Graham Bell believed that the use of Sign Language held the Deaf community together and prevented them from communicating ‘normally’ through attempted speech. Oralism attempted to use speech therapy and lip-reading without Sign Language to ‘humanise’ Deaf people and force them to communicate in spoken English (Miles).

However, research into Oralism in the 1970s revealed that Deaf children leaving school after years of speech therapy were no better at lip-reading than hearing children of the same age. In fact the average reading age of a Deaf child leaving school under the Oralist tradition was nine years old (Conrad). In comparison, Deaf children with Deaf parents have been shown to do much better academically as a result of having access to Sign Language from an early age (Gregory). This led to a law being passed in Sweden in the early 1980s that all Deaf children had the right to be educated bilingually.

Language acquisition

Research into early cognitive development has shown that language acquisition from 0-3 years old is absolutely vital in the healthy psychological development of children and their ability to form a bond with their parents and learn essential lifeskills. Deaf children and children of Deaf parents must be given access to a language they can easily understand in order for this healthy development to take place.

“All human beings need a language for communication, but they also need a language for thinking, for processing information. Speech and language are two very different things. Deaf babies need Sign Language; it is their natural language, and should be established before they are taught English.” (Marschark)

What is more, developments in linguistic theory in the 1970s has shown that once a child acquires a first language it can easily go on to develop a second language, which is what we refer to as ‘Bilingualism’ – where the child has the benefit of learning and communicating in more than one language. The DVD presents these findings and argues that a Bilingual upbringing, rather than isolating a Deaf child, will give the child the benefit of actually understanding the world around them. Through acquiring Sign Language the child can go on to learn English and participate in both hearing and Deaf environments.

DANI found that many parents had gone against professional advice and had begun to use Sign Language with their children. For most it was out of desperation because they recognised that speech therapy and lip-reading alone were not enough. It also seemed natural to introduce signs for everyday words like ‘juice’, ‘food’, ‘bath’ and ‘bed’ which gradually led on to an interest in learning the proper structures of Sign Language. This trend reflected a recent study by Matthew Dye and Jim Kyle of the Deaf Studies Trust. Deaf adults with hearing parents reported that just 16% of hearing mothers and 13% of hearing fathers used Sign Language to communicate with them when they were children, and in adulthood, 36% of mothers and 23% of fathers signed with their Deaf children.

“It is positive that these parents realised that learning Sign Language would improve their bond with their children, however I am concerned that this realisation came so late and after the crucial formative years had passed,” Janet, Resource Development Worker for the Signing Family Project, commented.

The Signing family DVD presents an accumulation of these findings offering both the personal experiences of parents and Deaf people, with the latest findings of academics carrying out the latest research into Language Acquisition and Bilingualism. It is hoped that the resource will bring support to families and inform relevant professionals of developments into the truths behind Sign Language.

For further information visit www.signcommunity.org.uk or contact northernireland@bda.org.uk, 02890 387700 (voice) or 02890 387706 (text). The DVD is free within Northern Ireland. There is a charge of £18 for members of the public outside Northern Ireland and £25 for organisations.

References

Gregory, S. 2004. Bilingualism and the education of Deaf children. Paper presented at the Bilingualism and the Education of Deaf Children: Advances in Practice Conference, Leeds, June 1996.

Marschark, M. 1993. Psychological development of Deaf children. New York: Oxford University Press.

Miles, D. 1999. British Sign Language: a beginner’s guide. London: BBC Books.

Conrad, J. 1979. The Deaf School Child. London: Harper Row.

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