Signed and Spoken Language Development in a Hearing Child of Hearing Parents

Abstract

The communicative behavior of a hearing child of hearing parents was recorded from the child’s 26th week through the 17th month. Both parents communicated with the child from birth in signs and spoken words. Comparison with contemporary studies of spoken language development shows this child’s expressive communication in both modalities accelerated. It is hypothesized that the addition of a signed component may have been responsible for this child’s early acquisition of language.