Language deprivation

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Language deprivation is associated with the lack of linguistic stimuli that are necessary for the language acquisition processes in an individual. Research has shown that early exposure to a first language will predict future language outcomes. [1] Experiments involving language deprivation are very scarce due to the ethical controversy associated with it. Roger Shattuck, an American writer, called language deprivation research "The Forbidden Experiment" because it required the deprivation of a normal human. [2] Similarly, experiments were performed by depriving animals of social stimuli to examine psychosis. Although there has been no formal experimentation on this topic, there are several cases of language deprivation. The combined research on these cases has furthered the research in the critical period hypothesis and sensitive period in language acquisition.

Contents

Cases of language deprivation

Genie

The most well-documented case of a language-deprived child was that of Genie. Genie was discovered in 1971 in the family home, where she was recognized as highly abnormal. A social welfare agency took her into custody and admitted Genie into a hospital. Before discovery, Genie had lived strapped and harnessed into a chair. Genie, 13 years of age upon discovery, was malnourished, insensitive to tactile senses, and silent even upon being evoked; however she had proper social skills and she was able to maintain eye contact with caregivers, giving the impression that she understood instruction. After being discharged from the hospital she was put in foster care where she received "informal" training.

The first tests of language were taken three years after her discovery. She was given a variety of language test measures to test her sound skills, comprehension skills, and grammatical skills. She was able to discriminate between initial and final consonants. However, she lacked pitch and volume control, her speech was described as high pitched and breathy with sound distortions, consonant clusters, neutralizing vowels, dropping final consonants, and reducing consonants. She was able to comprehend instructions but was dependent on pantomime and gesture. Genie was capable of discriminating affirmation from negative, comparative adjectives, and colour words. After four years of language stimulation, her linguistic performance was similar to that of a normal two-year-old infant. She had poor performance in complex sentences, interchangeably used the pronouns "you" and "me", and lacked the question form of sentence structure. Further studies were conducted focusing on the physiological state of Genie. She was right-handed but neurological tests showed that she processed her language in the right hemisphere. Normally right-handed people process language in the left hemisphere. She excelled in right-hemisphere processed tasks, such as face perception, holistic recall of unrelated objects, and number perception. Genie's language skills were deemed poor, and this was linked to the notion that she began to learn language when she was 13½. [3] [4]

Kaspar Hauser

An alleged case of language deprivation was of Kaspar Hauser, who was said to have been kept in a dungeon in Germany until the age of 17 and claimed he'd only received contact from a hooded man not long before his release. Sources stated that he had a small amount of language; other sources state that upon discovery he spoke a garbled sentence. He was able to learn enough language to attempt to write an autobiography and to also become a legal clerk. However, five years after his discovery he died of a stab wound. [5]

Anna

Anna was born March 6, 1932, and was an illegitimate child. She was put in isolation by her mother because of this. Anna was kept tied to a chair and was malnourished due to being fed milk only. Upon discovery on February 6, 1938, she was sent to a county home. Further examination of Anna determined that she was very poor physiologically but that her senses were intact. During her stay at the county, she gained some body weight and began to build muscle in her body. She lived at the county home for nine months until she was moved to a foster home. Upon leaving she was still very unsocial, because there was no predetermined caregiver in the county home, which consisted of over 300 inmates and one nurse; often she was taken care of by inmates. The caregiver at the foster home used the same method to talk to Anna by which a mother would talk to their infant. During her tenure at the foster home, she underwent some mental development and was similar to a one-year-old. After a year at the foster home she was sent to a school for defective children. Although she could not speak at the time, she had a comprehension of instructions. [6]

Isabelle

Another case of a child deprived at a young age is that of Isabelle. Confined to a room with a deaf and mute mother, she spent 6½ years in silence without any language stimulation. Upon discovery she was sent to a hospital where she was monitored for her apathetic behaviour. Now in a ward with children, she began to imitate other children in the ward to request attention. [7] She had also begun language training. Eighteen months into her training her repertoire of words was estimated to be 1500–2500 words; she was also able to produce complex sentence structures. Throughout her training she began to use correct inflectional morphology, pronouns, and prepositions. [8]

Feral children

Feral children are children discovered by society to be living in the wild with the assumption that they were raised by animals. It is stated that such children are deprived of human associations and are too strongly conditioned with animal behaviours, such that the human development is permanently inhibited and the animal inhibitions are never lost throughout life. There are several known cases of feral children relearning language, the most well-known of which is Victor. [9] Victor was found at the age of 13 and was given to Dr. Itard, who "experimented" on the child. Victor was also known as the "wild boy of Aveyron". He was characterized to be insensitive to temperature, uncivilized and to run on all fours. Dr. Jean Marc Gaspard Itard conducted training over a period of 5 years, during which time Victor was able to recover some speech. [10]

Deaf children

Deaf children who do not have access to fluent language models could be at risk of permanent, irreversible effects to their brains. These effects include not only a detrimental impact on language acquisition, but other cognitive and mental health difficulties as well. [11] [12] Hearing parents of deaf infants typically work with audiologists and other medical professionals who offer medical interventions for their child's hearing loss, including hearing aids and cochlear implants. They may be advised to use sign language as a last resort when the child has failed to learn spoken language. [13] While most deaf infants who receive cochlear implants and auditory therapy early in life will achieve spoken language skills on par with their hearing peers, this effect is not universal; without appropriate supports, or in children with complicating medical conditions, those with cochlear implants exposed only to spoken language can still show a lack of spoken language ability when compared to hearing peers. [14]

The effects of language deprivation in deaf children, like hearing children, can include permanently affecting their ability to ever achieve proficiency in a language. Deaf children who do not learn language until later in life are more likely to process signed languages not as linguistic input, but as visual input, contrasting with children exposed from birth, who process signed language in the same region of the brain in which hearing people process spoken language. [11] Additionally, studies show a notable decrease in sign language grammar skills of deaf adults who were not exposed to sign until after age 5 when compared to those exposed from birth, and an even greater decrease in those who were not exposed until after age 8, in some cases being so poor as to have near-coincidence levels of accuracy. [15]

There is conflicting evidence as to whether sign language exposure interferes with the development of spoken language. While some analysis has suggested that early sign language exposure may not hinder later spoken language development, [16] other clinical research on children who use cochlear implants has found that those without exposure to sign language were almost twice as likely to achieve age-appropriate spoken language compared with children who were exposed to visual communication for 3 or more years. [14] In either case, however, exposure to fluent language models was effective in mitigating risk for language deprivation.

Research

The "critical period of learning" hypothesis states that a person must be exposed to language within a certain time period to acquire language effectively. The certain time period ranges from early childhood to end of puberty. [17] Evidence has shown that learning language during critical period will provide native-like abilities in morphology, phonology, and syntax. [17] Late learners that miss the critical period can still obtain basic syntactic abilities along with good use of vocabulary, but they will not achieve native-like abilities when it comes to grammar. [17]

Besides critical period, another period of learning is called sensitive period. Sensitive period is described as any specific time period where learning is still possible even after critical period of learning. [18] It has several sensitive periods. Evidence has demonstrated that it can affect language development including morphology, phonology, and syntax. [17] However, as long as the language is learned at an earlier age, the language acquisition will not be affected. [18]

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura-Ann Petitto</span> American psychologist and neuroscientist (born c. 1954)

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Prelingual deafness refers to deafness that occurs before learning speech or language. Speech and language typically begin to develop very early with infants saying their first words by age one. Therefore, prelingual deafness is considered to occur before the age of one, where a baby is either born deaf or loses hearing before the age of one. This hearing loss may occur for a variety of reasons and impacts cognitive, social, and language development.

Language acquisition is a natural process in which infants and children develop proficiency in the first language or languages that they are exposed to. The process of language acquisition is varied among deaf children. Deaf children born to deaf parents are typically exposed to a sign language at birth and their language acquisition follows a typical developmental timeline. However, at least 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents who use a spoken language at home. Hearing loss prevents many deaf children from hearing spoken language to the degree necessary for language acquisition. For many deaf children, language acquisition is delayed until the time that they are exposed to a sign language or until they begin using amplification devices such as hearing aids or cochlear implants. Deaf children who experience delayed language acquisition, sometimes called language deprivation, are at risk for lower language and cognitive outcomes. However, profoundly deaf children who receive cochlear implants and auditory habilitation early in life often achieve expressive and receptive language skills within the norms of their hearing peers; age at implantation is strongly and positively correlated with speech recognition ability. Early access to language through signed language or technology have both been shown to prepare children who are deaf to achieve fluency in literacy skills.

Language deprivation in deaf and hard-of-hearing children is a delay in language development that occurs when sufficient exposure to language, spoken or signed, is not provided in the first few years of a deaf or hard of hearing child's life, often called the critical or sensitive period. Early intervention, parental involvement, and other resources all work to prevent language deprivation. Children who experience limited access to language—spoken or signed—may not develop the necessary skills to successfully assimilate into the academic learning environment. There are various educational approaches for teaching deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Decisions about language instruction is dependent upon a number of factors including extent of hearing loss, availability of programs, and family dynamics.

Language exposure for children is the act of making language readily available and accessible during the critical period for language acquisition. Deaf and hard of hearing children, when compared to their hearing peers, tend to face more hardships when it comes to ensuring that they will receive accessible language during their formative years. Therefore, deaf and hard of hearing children are more likely to have language deprivation which causes cognitive delays. Early exposure to language enables the brain to fully develop cognitive and linguistic skills as well as language fluency and comprehension later in life. Hearing parents of deaf and hard of hearing children face unique barriers when it comes to providing language exposure for their children. Yet, there is a lot of research, advice, and services available to those parents of deaf and hard of hearing children who may not know how to start in providing language.

The Language Equality and Acquisition for Deaf Kids (LEAD-K) campaign is a grassroots organization. Its mission is to work towards kindergarten readiness for deaf and hard-of-hearing children by promoting access to both American Sign Language (ASL) and English. LEAD-K defines kindergarten readiness as perceptive and expressive proficiency in language by the age of five. Deaf and hard-of-hearing children are at high risk of being cut off from language, language deprivation, which can have far-reaching consequences in many areas of development. There are a variety of methods to expose Deaf and hard-of-hearing children to language, including hearing aids, cochlear implants, sign language, and speech and language interventions such as auditory/verbal therapy and Listening and Spoken Language therapy. The LEAD-K initiative was established in response to perceived high rates of delayed language acquisition or language deprivation displayed among that demographic, leading to low proficiency in English skills later in life.

According to The Deaf Unit Cairo, there are approximately 1.2 million deaf and hard of hearing individuals in Egypt aged five and older. Deafness can be detected in certain cases at birth or throughout childhood in terms of communication delays and detecting language deprivation. The primary language used amongst the deaf population in Egypt is Egyptian Sign Language (ESL) and is widely used throughout the community in many environments such as schools, deaf organizations, etc. This article focuses on the many different aspects of Egyptian life and the impacts it has on the deaf community.

References

  1. ↑ Cummins, Jim. "The Relationship between American Sign Language and English". Research Gate. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
  2. ↑ Shattuck, Roger (1994) [1980]. The Forbidden Experiment: The Story of the Wild Boy of Aveyron. Kodansha International.
  3. ↑ Tartter, V. C. (1998). Language Processing in Atypical Populations. California: SAGE publications. pp. 113–121
  4. ↑ Pines, M. (1981). The Civilizing of Genie. Psychology Today, 15(9), 28. Accessed 3/11/2012
  5. ↑ Tartter, V. C. (1998). Language Processing in Atypical Populations. California: SAGE publications. pp. 111–112
  6. ↑ Davis, K. (1940) The Extreme Isolation of a Child. American Journal of Sociology, 45(4), 554–565. Accessed 3/9/2012.
  7. ↑ Tartter, Vivien (1998). Language Processing in Atypical Populations. SAGE Publications. p. 113. ISBN   0761914684.
  8. ↑ Tartter, V. C. (1998). Language Processing in Atypical Populations. California: SAGE publications. p. 113.
  9. ↑ Dennis, W. (1941) The Significance of a Feral Man. The American Journal of Psychology, 54(3), 425–432.
  10. ↑ Tartter, V. C. (1998). Language Processing in Atypical Populations. California: SAGE publications. p.104-111
  11. 1 2 Hall, Wyatte C. (May 2017). "What You Don't Know Can Hurt You: The Risk of Language Deprivation by Impairing Sign Language Development in Deaf Children". Maternal and Child Health Journal. 21 (5): 961–965. doi:10.1007/s10995-017-2287-y. PMC   5392137 . PMID   28185206.
  12. ↑ Glickman, Neil S. (2018-09-03). Language Deprivation and Deaf Mental Health (1 ed.). New York: Routledge, 2019.: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315166728. ISBN   978-1-315-16672-8. S2CID   149837579.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  13. ↑ Humphries, Tom; Kushalnagar, Poorna; Mathur, Gaurav; Napoli, Donna Jo; Padden, Carol; Rathmann, Christian; Smith, Scott R. (2012-04-02). "Language acquisition for deaf children: Reducing the harms of zero tolerance to the use of alternative approaches". Harm Reduction Journal. 9 (1): 16. doi: 10.1186/1477-7517-9-16 . ISSN   1477-7517. PMC   3384464 . PMID   22472091.
  14. 1 2 Geers, AE; Mitchell, CM; Warner-Czyz, A; Wang, NY; Eisenberg, LS (July 2017). "Early Sign Language Exposure and Cochlear Implantation Benefits". Pediatrics. 140 (1). doi:10.1542/peds.2016-3489. PMC   5495521 . PMID   28759398.
  15. ↑ Mayberry, Rachel I. (July 2007). "When timing is everything: Age of first-language acquisition effects on second-language learning". Applied Psycholinguistics. 28 (3): 537–549. doi: 10.1017/s0142716407070294 . ISSN   1469-1817.
  16. ↑ Campbell, R; MacSweeney, M; Woll, B (2014). "Cochlear implantation (CI) for prelingual deafness: the relevance of studies of brain organization and the role of first language acquisition in considering outcome success". Front Hum Neurosci. 8: 834. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00834 . PMC   4201085 . PMID   25368567.
  17. 1 2 3 4 Morgan, G. (2014). Critical period in language development. In P. J. Brooks & V. Kempe (Eds.), Encyclopedia of language development (pp. 116-118). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi : 10.4135/9781483346441.n36
  18. 1 2 Zeanah, C. H., Gunnar, M. R., McCall, R. B., Kreppner, J. M., & Fox, N. A. (2011). Sensitive Periods. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 76(4), 147–162. doi : 10.1111/j.1540-5834.2011.00631.x
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