Age of cochlear implantation and ASL skill impact literacy development

After decades of research, many researchers (and the parents, educators, and clinicians who rely on the results of their scientific inquiry) maintain opposing views regarding appropriate strategies for ensuring adequate language and literacy development among young deaf children. These viewpoints range from the exclusive use of cochlear implants (with no visual language) to the exclusive use of a visual language (with no implantation). Recent authors have posited the potential benefits of early sign language for implanted children and have refuted claims that signing will negatively impact the success of implantation, but little research has explored the nature of these benefits in detail. This study examines the impact of sign language skill on emergent literacy for a sample of implanted 5-year-old deaf children. Using hierarchical regression modeling, this study evaluates whether the addition of a measure of American Sign Language (ASL) receptive skills to a model that includes the age of implantation increases the predictability of performance on two measures of emergent English literacy. The results confirm the hypothesis that level of ASL skill positively impacts emerging literacy, controlling for the age of implantation. Potential biasing effects of demographic variables are presented and discussed, as are implications for future research.