Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Behavioral Assessment of Hearing in 2 to 4 Year-old Children: A Two-interval, Observer-based Procedure Using Conditioned Play-based Responses
Published on: January 23, 2017
Language development in deaf children's interactions with deaf and hearing adults: a Dutch longitudinal study
Jetske Klatter-Folmer1, Roeland van Hout, Esther Kolen
1Center for Language Studies, Faculty of Arts, Radboud University Nijmegen, Erasmus Building Room 8.02B, P.O. Box 9103, 6500 HD Nijmegen, The Netherlands. j.klatter@let.ru.nl
Abstract:
The language development of two deaf girls and four deaf boys in Sign Language of the Netherlands (SLN) and spoken Dutch was investigated longitudinally. At the start, the mean age of the children was 3;5. All data were collected in video-recorded semistructured conversations between individual children and deaf and hearing adults. We investigated the lexical richness and syntactic complexity of the children's utterances in SLN and spoken Dutch, as well as language dominance and interactional participation. Richness and complexity increase over time, as well as children's participation. An important outcome is that syntactic complexity is higher in utterances with both sign and speech. SLN does not have higher outcomes on richness or complexity, but is dominant in terms of frequency of use.
Related Concept Videos
Language Development
The critical period for language acquisition suggests that the ability to acquire language is at its peak early in life. As people age, this proficiency decreases. Language development begins very...
Language and Cognition
Learning Disabilities
Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a...
