Sign learning and its use in a co-enrollment kindergarten setting

Area of Science:

• Child Development
• Linguistics
• Special Education

Background:

• Previous research indicates sign language benefits language acquisition in children.
• Limited data exists on sign learning in naturalistic kindergarten settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate sign learning and modality use in hearing children within an inclusive kindergarten.
• To compare sign learning in children with and without language development delays.
• To examine the impact of a deaf educator and deaf peers on communication strategies.

Main Methods:

• Utilized questionnaire and video data from an inclusive kindergarten group.
• Included hearing children (aged 3;7-5;9) with and without language delays, a deaf child (aged 3;8), and a deaf signing educator.
• Analyzed sign acquisition and communication modality use during interactions.

Main Results:

• Hearing children in the group with a deaf educator learned significantly more signs than those in training-only groups.
• Hearing children's sign learning showed a positive correlation with spoken language development, though individual factors for language delays influenced this.
• Despite learning signs, hearing children predominantly used spoken language with hearing educators and nonverbal strategies with deaf individuals.

Conclusions:

• The presence of a deaf educator enhances sign learning in hearing children.
• Limited use of signs during free play by hearing children poses challenges for deaf children's participation.
• Effective inclusion requires more sign-language-proficient peers and strategies to promote visual modality use.