How Does American Sign Language Affect Children

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The Impact American Sign Language Has on Language Development in Children
American Sign Language (ASL) is a complete, complex language that employs signs made by moving hands combined with facial expressions and postures of the body. Sign Language has its own vocabulary and grammar system. It is the primary language of many North Americans who are deaf and people who are hard-of-hearing (source). Throughout history, there has been a long-standing debate on whether using ASL, a visual language, enhances or hinders the spoken language or literary skills in children without any hearing impairment. While many deaf children and those with an extensive loss of hearing, are taught sign language, studies show it may also benefit hearing children, …show more content…
Babies are able to take in his or her environment while learning to adapt to constant change in their development. At this point in time, babies are able to take in new languages, because their cognitive skills are used to constantly learning. While sign language is necessary for a deaf or hard of hearing child, studies have shown if the correct steps are taken, a hearing child can benefit as well. Sign can be used as an expressive communication prior to the appearance of speech skills. Although ASL is recommended instead of baby sign, many caregivers are not fluent in ASL, however, baby sign may have the same impact. When an infant, hearing or deaf, uses a form of sign, they are capable of expressing their needs before they start using words. With this in mind, studies have researched that parents find the infant becomes less frustrated and a better communication of what the child desires is understood …show more content…
The three families introduced signing as a form of communication when the children were about eight months old and continued signing throughout the child’s second year of life. During the second year, the child began to use fluent speech in opposition to signing (Pizer, 2007). During the case study, the children were videotaped at home and placed into different categories such as politeness, labels, and displays of knowledge (Pizer, 2007). At the end of the study, the parents concluded that although the use of sign did not speed up the production of speech to the extent that they wanted, the use of sign did, in fact, led to a better communication system with their
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