Chapter 4: How Deaf/DeafBlind Children Learn
Deaf Children in a Hearing World:
How Children Learn:
How Babies Learn:
Bilingualism:
Important Skills:
They can be put into facilities that are not necessary for them
Deafness in babies can be detected late, making them more likely to experience delays in their learning and social skills.
Deaf people can be misdiagnosed as having mental illnesses they do not actually have
Teachers should wait until they are done writing/reading before continuing; they have many things to focus on
Deaf children remember visual and spatial information better than hearing children
Visual/tactile methods. Eye contact is also important.
ToM Skills: The child can understand the feelings and thoughts of others, enabling them to empathize with them.
Reasoning: Having the ability to logically, numerically and spatially reason as well as use critical thinking and empathy.
Deaf children have good peripheral vision, but also get easily distracted by things in their peripheral; they need organized environments to learn best.
Metacognitive: When the child can take what they are thinking and reflect on it
Executive Function: The behaviors and organization needed to get things done, like completing projects. Children with good EF skills can control impulses and emotions well.
While parents would normally say words slower, parents of Deaf babies will sign slower and bigger.
They also repeat them next to the baby or object they are signing so that they can associate objects with the signs (Child-Directed Signs).
Parents stay in a triangle between them, the baby, and the object so that they can understand the relationship between what the parent is signing and the object.
Learning two or more languages can help the child to retain words by relating them to the other language. (translanguaging)
Multilingualism can also teach children to relate more complex thoughts, which assists academically.
Deaf children often learn conversational and academic language at the same time at school, which should not be the case. Conversational language should be learned at home so that the child can develop ToM skills.
Code-blend: both languages are used at the same time
The best time for children to learn multiple languages is before age 5.
It was realized that spoken and signed language activates the same parts of the brain, meaning both can be used to equally stimulate a child's learning.
Codeswitching: One language is used at a time. After a sentence or more, the person repeats it in the other.
Chaining, sandwiching, or bridging: Sign and spoken language are used intermittently.