How Sign Language Helps the Development of Language in Young Children (Reaction Paper Sample)

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How Sign Language Helps the Development of Language in Young Children
Abstract
Introduction
The primary reason behind this writing is to determine how early childhood experts from different fields of occupations view or come to terms with how sign language impacts a child's development in the early stages. The early childhood professional field experts, teachers, and speech and language pathologists will be part of the study groups or samples participating in the research. The participants' responses who will be asked to participate in the research study will be collected and recorded. A literature review and construction will help utilize an electronic questionnaire that interprets the sign language into development during the research. The questionnaires will be distributed using various modern technological methods like the survey monkeys, which then will be analyzed and conclusions recorded, and recommendations made. The main objective of the research is to find out if truly sign language is beneficial to early childhood development as perceived by most people. Therefore, this StudyStudy anticipates appositive results regarding this perception. It will use different data collection and analysis techniques to collect, analyze, and store the data in raw and processed forms (Metzger, pg.439). The benefits of the language will be given a significant focus point, and the improvements that can be made will also be recorded in the recommendations. The challenges incurred during the StudyStudy or recorded to be associated with the sign language to the little children will also be documented and addressed in the research. The experimentation will select experimental designs that will conform to the anticipated results; the mode and ways of engaging the experts will be through physical contact like face-to-face interviews or with questionnaires forms to be filled. Parents of these young ones will also be included in the StudyStudy as they are integral people during their early stages of development. Parent roles when it comes to using sign language in their your ones early stages of development and how they impact the child’s speech development is another topic of interest in this testing (Metzger, pg.439). The investigation will also try to keep in check during the StudyStudy the age t which the sign language will be most applicable and comfortable to be introduced to the young children to help enhance their speech development.
Sign Language in Child’s Early Development of Speech
American Sign language, known as the ( ASL), remains one of the basic or primary used means of communication among the physically impaired deaf individuals. This type of communication language has been in use since the early 1800s after Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet contributed to the development of the language by playing an important role in its initial stages of development. He later accomplished this by creating a University for the deaf impaired individuals in society. ASL has become one of the world languages, more like Spanish or French. A child who uses sign language during communication is likely to be referred to as bilingual from the use of sign language and verbal communication (Gwyneth Doherty-Sneddon). When young children are undergoing simultaneous training on ASL and another language, such as French, in a classroom, the child can use both parts of the brain to process the languages taught. This enhanced the child's memory as they have two memory sides of the brain to help recall the languages instead of just one side (Metzger, pg.439).
Literature Reviews
The Sign Language
Sign languages (SLs) use signals created by moving the hands in conjunction with body postures and facial emotions to communicate. Persons who seem to be deaf or hard of hearing mostly utilize SLs to communicate with one other. American Sign Language (ASL) is the primary language model used in Canada and N. America regions.
Deafness and Hearing Difficulties
There is not too little capacity to hear the medical term for someone who is deaf (Metzger). Deaf people are unable to communicate verbally or in any other way. The term "functional deafness" refers to those unable to hear. Only particular frequencies or noises within a limited loudness range are audible to the deaf, and they may depend significantly on assistive devices and nonverbal communication (Metzger, pg.439). Hearing aids, cochlear implantable devices, gestures, and interpreters are some of the accommodations that children with hearing impairment employ. Those who are hard of hearing or deaf may benefit from these modifications.
Children Language Development
A range of kinesthetic learning, particularly "spoken phonetics," "gestural," and "contextual," may be accommodated via gesturing and fingerspelling, according to the study. Hence, the greater the recall, the more circuits in the brain that are established as a result of representing material in ASL by seeing, hearing, and movement. The periods from birth and the age of eight, known as the formative years, are a time of fast growth, with intellectual growth at its highest development point. The young ones are heavily affected by environmental conditions and those adults around them during this early era of development. From early exposure of children to sign languages, signing has been indicated to assist children in improving their language and cognitive skills (Metzger, pg.439). Despite screaming from most toddlers to get the attention of those around to attain what they desire, signing children learn to communicate faster using simple words and phrases to express their desires or communicate with one another. Unlike other creatures, what makes us human beings is our ability to communicate and express ourselves comfortably. This freedom or right to communicate one's ideas and exchange many thoughts, emotions, and feelings is unquestionably right. According to research, a sign may be remembered by infants as early as six or seven months old. Eight-month-olds can sign single words; complex phrases and sentences can be signed by 24 months. Numerous early childhood educators have also started teaching their pupils sign language (Pizer, pp. 390).
Using sign language has proved useful for children in a broad range of circumstances. Early exposure to sign language for preverbal children has been shown to have long-term positive effects on the development of such youngsters. Numerous pieces of evidence have demonstrated that the use of sign language by infants and early children improves the connection between parents and children, accelerates speech development, and allows newborns to convey basic needs like being hungry or wounded. Individuals who have trouble learning to communicate verbally have been helped by sign language systems. Using signs, disabled children such as autism and intellectual disabilities and those with hearing loss may now interact. People with poor vocal motor coordination but excellent manual control may profit from signing as a potential substitute for verbal communication. A caregiver may physically urge a person with autism to sign, making it simpler to teach sign language than speech-language.
Some researchers and physicians believe that signing should also be taught to children who are generally developing throughout their first two years of life because of these benefits. Studies reveal that babies subjected to sign language develop their first signs sooner than those who are not. This is the major baseline for the recommendation above by researchers. The early use of sign language may delay the emergence of verbal language; nevertheless, findings from research conducted (Goodwyn, Acredolo, and Brown) show that sign instruction may enhance rather than inhibit the growth of vocal language development. This research found that on follow-up assessments of comprehension and production of spoken language, hearing babies whose parents supported symbolic gestures did better than children whose families encouraged spoken language. Crying is the infant's main means of communication, even though they begin interacting with their guardians via facial expressions, gazes, and vocalizations like cooing from an early age. Caregivers may get a range of reactions from crying, but one drawback is that they frequently have to depend on context signals to figure out what to do in response.
On the other hand, sign language has the benefit that signals, like voice answers, may designate their reinforcers; hence, signing may lead to more successful caregiving. Even though infants' crying is a natural part of their development, research on parents' behavior and physiological reactions suggest that crying is an unpleasant experience for them. Therefore, signing may be a better way to communicate with their babies (Metzger, pg.439).
Signing in Babies
Babies born with hearing defects mostly have speech problems and do not speak as peers during these development stages, unlike children with normal hearing development. Babies are naturally delivered when the deaf are unaware of what an aural means of communication is like; therefore, they have no method of mimicking the sounds of words. In the case of children who are born deaf, their parents or caregivers should begin teaching them to sign language as soon as possible. While Sign Language (SL) is critical for children perceived to be deaf or have difficulty when it comes hearing, this may be beneficial for youngsters who can speak before they can say their first word. Starting a child's communication early is easy with baby signing. Infants may interact with their caretakers through baby signing and sign language....