Comments on: Some bilingualisms are more equal than others

By: Language deficit in super-diversity | Language on the Move

Language deficit in super-diversity | Language on the Move — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 07:04:21 +0000

[…] deficit in contexts of so-called linguistic super-diversity points, yet again, to the fact that some language skills are more equal than others. When it comes to bragging about linguistic diversity and the number of languages spoken in a […]

By: Patrick Sheehan

Patrick Sheehan — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 19:56:20 +0000

RE: “the time that one spends using ASL is time that is not being spent developing spoken language and not developing the auditory pathways in the brain”, and other comments:

It seems especially strange to suggest that this is true for Sign. In fact, just the opposite is likely to be true.

It would be one thing to suggest this for English vs Spanish (or any other Aural/Vocal language pairs) where the inputs/outputs are the same: Sound. Even in these cases, there is good evidence they help more than hurt each other.

But ASL and English can literally be taught simultaneously – not in close inter-layered proximity like in bilingual English-Spanish classrooms, but literally simultaneously with sounds and signs happening together (at least for the foundations: vocabulary building, developing auditory pathways in the brain, etc). There is literally zero time “lost.”

Not only that, but every-study-ever regarding any sort of learning is clear: one learns everything better when the information is 1) connected to other things you already know (ie, kids that know Sign using that to help learn Auditory/Vocal languages and connect what they already know to auditory stimuli), and 2) when the knowledge is in a rich mental web connecting representations of it in different senses and learning styles (ie, learning both English and Sign and language in general better when watching/hearing/reading/signing/speaking/writing/living are all interlinked).

So, the claim seems strange to me.

By: Fostering Mother Languages « Language Blag

Fostering Mother Languages « Language Blag — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:36:01 +0000

[…] there are middle ways. Children with cochlear implants can be brought up bilingual, learning to sign and to speak. Research has shown that there are real cognitive benefits of growing up bilingual. Under normal […]

By: Sara Blažić

Sara Blažić — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 23:05:21 +0000

In reply to Miss Kat’s Mom.

Hi Gerry, Miss Kat’s Mom,
Thanks for reading. I think you’ve both brought up interesting points– MKM that deaf kids need to play catch-up and put time, effort and “intensive aural habilitation” to establish auditory pathways in that allow for the understanding of sound, and Gerry that obtaining language is in some cases sacrificed for speech (and detrimentally so).
I continue to maintain that there is enough time for both, as there is enough time for Spanish and English, French and English, as there is enough time for science and math, etc. I’m confused by the assertions that ASL takes away time from establishing auditory pathways (never mind the separate discussion of what and how much language kids get from either methodology), “especially when you reach school age,” but that early implanted kids are finished with therapy “long before their formal education begins”? I fail to see the conflict of time or interest indicated.

By: Miss Kat's Mom

Miss Kat's Mom — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 21:58:49 +0000

In reply to Gerry. Actually, today's early implanted kids are generally completely finished with their therapy long before formal education begins! But, in response to your question, auditory oral education is NOT speech training. Every moment that is spent in immersive spoken language IS teaching language. You teach spoken language to a child by using language, just like you teach ASL by using it to communicate. You then use the language to teach reading and all the other subjects.

By: Gerry

Gerry — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 15:31:46 +0000

In reply to Mi.

Mi,

How do you balance the “the need for intensive aural habilitation” with the need for actual education? Aural rehabilitation clearly interferes with education since the time being spent on developing spoken language is not being spent on reading and other actual education. This has been observed with various oral/AVT/LSL deaf education schemes over the past 125 years and is the *real* reason for the (now outdated) statistic that deaf students graduate with a third or fourth grade reading level. The deaf students on whom those old stats are based were overwhelmingly from non-signing educational programs.

Everyone I know values speech and the ability to understand spoken English as useful skills. However, if time devoted to these crowds out everything else, then deaf children are being harmed.

Gerry

By: Michael Newman

Michael Newman — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 09:18:53 +0000

There is one error in this otherwise important and interesting post. “Parents of a hearing child would never be instructed to stop speaking Spanish, French, etcetera, out of concern that it might hurt their child’s English because the suggestion that language delays language is laughable.” I hear this all the time from people, students and others who find out I’m a linguistics prof. Not only that, the idea that Spanish time competes with English time in the way that commenter Mi claims is also quite widespread. More generally, the monolingual norm is alive, well, and still doing damage. I think its power derives ultimately in worries about language and identity, that if you speak two languages or sign one and speak another, you don’t belong fully to a single community. This is the case whether or not it’s dressed up in worries about the development of neural pathways, which is an empirical question that remains purely speculative against the clear danger of the lack of development of language that has played deaf people deprived of linguistic input for centuries..

By: Mi

Mi — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 23:43:11 +0000

Well, there is one issue that you have not addressed. How do you balance the need for voice off ASL (especially when you reach school age) and the need for intensive aural habilitation? Children who are going to make the best use of their hearing devices need to build the auditory pathways in their brain, and they are already at least a year (probably even more since a fetus begins to hear 20 weeks BEFORE birth!) behind. So, even if ASL doesn’t interfere directly with the development of spoken language, the time that one spends using ASL is time that is not being spent developing spoken language and not developing the auditory pathways in the brain.

By: Christof Demont-Heinrich

Christof Demont-Heinrich — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 23:05:57 +0000

Sara,
An extremely well-argued and well-written entry. You draw crucial critical attention to questions that don’t get enough examination, either in mainstream society, or in linguistics. At a very broad level of analysis, I think the biggest issue here — and it extends beyond ASL questions — is the ideology of the “normal”. This ideology truly infuses all aspects of social life as it seeks to push people inexorably to what is “normal”, “mainstream”, in the “center”, etc. It is extremely difficult to challenge and undercut as well, as, for example, your references to medical professionals advising parents of deaf children not to sign with their children clearly illustrates. And it continues to influence bad, just plain wrong “advice” vis-a-vis raising children multilingually in social environments in which monolingual ideology is nested underneath the ideology of “the normal”. So, although I agree with virtually everything you write, I have to say that, sadly, there are still plenty of instances in which parents raising their children to be multilingual are in fact told by too many people, including so-called “educated” people, that doing so will undermine their English (or their German, or their French, or their Russian, depending on where they live).