Sign codes and sign language: two orders of communication

Deaf children, like all children, are born with a capacity for language; i.e. the symbolization and expression of cognitive functioning. Until the age at which hearing children are talking, deaf children communicate well with others, using their sight, touch, and other actions--the common gestures in the culture of their caretakers. The chief problem in communication arises when hearers reject the deaf child's gestural symbolization of his developing language knowledge. The problem is aggravated by insistence that the child use speech as do those who hear. Linguistic, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral problems may then follow, because of the attitude and actions of the hearing. All these problems can be resolved by early recognizing that the deaf person has a language and by honestly trying to learn and use it. This language is not a set of signs standing for spoken words but a complete language with its own rules for making sense in signed sentences.