Acquisition of Sign Language as L1

by Mateus Vitor da Silva Lima

(http://www.ocdeaf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/sign-language-kid.jpg)

When we think of deaf children, or children  with difficulties to produce oral language, who make use of sign languages we tend to think that their mother tongue is ASL (in the US), LIBRAS (in Brazil) or any other formal sign language from any other country. However, in most of the cases deaf children's mother tongue is a totally home-devoleped sign language the parents created to communicate with their children. This can happen due the parents' unpreparedness to "deal" with a child in such condition and also not preparing themselves to promote the child a language through which they will be able to communicate with other people outside their family environment once these home-devoleped sign languages are too individual.

When the family is already prepared to raise a deaf child,  or a child with difficulties to produce oral language, from the very beginning exposing this child to a formal sign language then the child's mother tongue will be this language he/she is interacting with.

Despite it being a formal or a home-devoleped sign language, the child pass through the same process of coping and babbling the hearing children do in the process of acquisition of their L1. The video below shows us that:

FURTHER READING:

Oxford Handbooks Scholarly Research Reviews. << http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935345.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199935345-e-19 >>