Visible Thought: Deaf Children’s Use of Signed & Spoken Private Speech

Abstract

This study examines deaf children’s use of private speech from a Vygotskian perspective. In this framework private speech is speech that is spoken aloud (or by a deaf child is visibly performed) but is addressed to no one in particular. Children from two matched groups-hearing mother-deaf child and Deaf motherdeaf child-were videotaped while attempting to assemble a construction toy. Both groups of children showed clear evidence of use of private speech, although the children with Deaf mothers used a signed form, a greater frequency, and more mature subtype of private speech, in comparison to the spoken form used by the other children. Findings are consistent with Vygotsky’s notion of the robustness of the phenomenon of private speech and its ontogenesis in early social communication.