Most deaf children in the U.S. learn through a sign language interpreter in a mainstream classroom. A Deaf Center paper argues that an interpreter can give a child access, but it can't give a child language — and that difference matters.

A new paper in Pediatric Annals lays out what good care looks like for deaf and hard of hearing kids: put full language access first, connect families to early intervention and deaf mentors, and learn from deaf people and families. Sign language is a complete language, not a backup, and it does not hold back spoken language.

Most ASL tests only check words and grammar. But understanding a story means more — it means making sense of it. A Deaf Center team built the first test for that deeper kind of ASL comprehension, and learned something hopeful about late starters.

The science of reading as it applies to deaf and hard of hearing children.

When a deaf or hard-of-hearing child first arrives in a hearing family, caregivers are faced with decisions they probably never anticipated. One of the most pressing is which language(s) to use with their child, and how soon to introduce that language? For families who choose to learn ASL alongside their child, a new study offers evidence that their effort can make a real difference for their child, even before their own signing is fluent. Published in Developmental Science,

"Parent choice" requires informed parents, backed by support.

A study published in The Journal of Special Education (2024) by Erin Finton, Wyatte C. Hall, Michele Berke, Ronald Bye, Stuart Ikeda,...

Research tells us that exposing deaf and hard of hearing children to ASL from an early age has a wide range of benefits, spanning language, social development, cognitive development, and school readiness. But how do hearing parents learn ASL? Our experience has been very positive. All have learned so much and felt so supported. My anxiety over communication barriers has decreased tremendously. Learning a new language can be a daunting task and one that takes a lot of time and

Understanding the Dynamics of Visual Attention in ASL Learning American Sign Language (ASL) is all about seeing and using signs to communicate. For deaf or hard-of-hearing children, learning ASL depends on knowing when to look at the person signing. But how do children learn this skill? In a recent study published in the Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (2024), researchers Paris Gappmayr and Amy M. Lieberman explored how deaf and hard-of-hear

Tools for diagnosing autism are often not well suited to deaf children, which can make it challenging to diagnose. That is for two big reasons. The first is that the usual autism measures (e.g., the ADOS-2, ADI-R, and CARS2) focus on a child's use of spoken language. That makes them ill suited to measuring language skills in deaf and hard of hearing children who use sign language. The second reason these tools don't work will is that deaf kids are often at risk for language d

Deaf children exposed to ASL before 6 months show age-appropriate vocabulary growth, matching peers with deaf parents.

Do signers organize their mental dictionary by how signs are formed, the way speakers organize theirs by sound? And does that change when language comes late? A look across a series of our studies.

Deaf children learning ASL split one visual channel between language and the world. Our research looks at how they manage it, what parents do to help, and why it matters for vocabulary.

Parents' ASL skills don’t impact toddlers’ vocabulary but are crucial as children grow, highlighting the need for early exposure.

Philadelphia Deaf signers show a unique signing style called dominance reversal, reflecting how social factors shape regional ASL variations