From early communication to bimodal vocabulary acquisition: A longitudinal study of hearing children with deaf mothers from infancy to school-age years

Abstract

Early language development has rarely been studied in hearing children with deaf parents who are exposed to both a spoken and a signed language (bimodal bilinguals). This study presents longitudinal data of early communication and vocabulary development in a group of 31 hearing infants exposed to British Sign Language (BSL) and spoken English, at 6 months, 15 months, 24 months and 7 years, in comparison with monolinguals (exposed to English) and unimodal bilinguals (exposed to two spoken languages). No differences were observed in early communication or vocabulary development between bimodal bilinguals and monolinguals, but greater early communicative skills in infancy were found in bimodal bilinguals compared to unimodal bilinguals. Within the bimodal bilingual group, BSL and English vocabulary sizes were positively related. These data provide a healthy picture of early language acquisition in those learning a spoken and signed language simultaneously from birth.