Abstract
Several previous studies of language development in deaf children with cochlear implants educated in oral schools have been reported but there are very few such investigations of deaf children simultaneously exposed to sign and spoken language during development. The present study aimed to measure vocabulary development in 14deaf children with chronological ages of 17-62months and hearing ages of 6-37months who were learning spoken Spanish and Spanish sign language. The deaf children were included in classroom groups with other hearing classmates, where all children were exposed to native models of both languages. To measure both languages, the children were evaluated using the Spanish MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory and a non-standardized test of Spanish early sign language vocabulary. The results of the evaluations indicated that all but two of the deaf children had spoken language production within normal ranges in relation to auditory age or length of time since cochlear implantation. When comparing vocabulary over two time periods, we found that both Spanish sign language and Spanish spoken production significantly improved over both periods. Children used more sign language than spoken language in the first assessment but this trend was reversed in the second time period. When all vocabulary was combined in spoken Spanish and Spanish sign language, the children had a larger set of semantic concepts in the combined bilingual lexicon than in each language taken separately.
Published Version
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