Child Visual Discourse: The Use of Language, Gestures, and Vocalizations by Deaf Preschoolers

• Authors: Tomaszewski Piotr
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This exploratory study examined the linguistic activity and conversational skills of deaf preschoolers by observing child-child dyads in free-play situations. Deaf child of deaf parents - deaf child of deaf parents (DCDP-DCDP) pairs were compared with deaf child of hearing parents - deaf child of hearing parents (DCHP-DCHP) pairs. Children from the two groups were videotaped during dyadic peer interactions in a naturalistic play situation. The findings indicated that deaf children were able to engage in successful communicative interaction. However, statistically significant differences were found between the two groups of deaf preschoolers with regard to some categories of communicative behaviors from the point of view of sign and spoken languages (Polish Sign Language and Polish). For example, DCHP were found to be less actively than DCDP through using speech. The results of this study suggest that intervention efforts should be focused on improving the language learning environment by facilitating signing by the parents and increasing their skills in visual-gestural strategies.

Keywords

EN

DEAF CHILDREN; GESTURE; LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT; SIGN AND SPOKEN LANGUAGES; VOCALIZATIONS

Discipline

• PSYCHOLOGY: PSYCHOLOGY

• Publisher: Committee for Psychological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Polish Psychological Bulletin
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 39
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 9-18
• Physical description: source-id: PPB_39_1\B352105516652777.xml
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Tomaszewski Piotr

• Piotr Tomaszewski, Uniwersytet Warszawski, Wydzial Psychologii, ul. Stawki 5/7, 00-183 Warszawa, Poland

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Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

09PLAAAA07101

DOI

10.2478/v10059-008-0004-9