Language and Cognitive Development in Deaf Children

A special issue of Behavioral Sciences (ISSN 2076-328X). This special issue belongs to the section "Cognition".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2025) | Viewed by 2173

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Estudis de Psicologia i Ciències de l'Educació, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Rambla del Poblenou, 156, 08018 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: language and cognitive development; environmental and biological factors and their interplay on development

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Guest Editor
Department of Basic, Developmental and Educational Psychology, School of Psychology, Edifici B, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Vallès (Bellaterra), 08193 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: language and cognitive development; social-cognition; literacy acquisition and development; speech and language therapy

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Guest Editor
1. Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology, University of Barcelona, Passeig de la Vall d'Hebron, 171, 08035 Barcelona, Spain
2. Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, Passeig de la Vall d'Hebron, 171, 08035 Barcelona, Spain
3. Department of Educational Psychology, Universidad de Valladolid, 400005 Segovia, Spain
Interests: language learning; cognitive development; bilingualism; hearing loss

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The language and cognitive development of children who are born deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) is extremely variable, linked to several factors inherent to the child and to the environment they are raised in. The profiles of DHH children have been extensively documented including perceptual abilities, social cognition, language, numeracy, and executive functions. The large variability in outcomes observed in research studies has been linked to several factors including family hearing status (deaf or hearing parents), the availability of hearing technology, and access to appropriate and early interventions. An exploration of how and why deafness influences development can have far-reaching theoretical and clinical implications, for example, for understanding how all children (deaf and hearing) develop language.

Cognitive abilities are related to language development and play a role in the variability observed across all children (deaf and hearing) in how fast and well they learn to communicate. For example, basic attentional control during the first year supports the segmentation of the speech stream and facilitates the beginning of intentional communication. Early inhibitory control and working memory during the first 24 months of life help children to build robust phonological representations with later benefits observed in understanding vocabulary.

We seek to address these and related questions in the present Special Issue of Behavioral Science. To this end, we solicit original research papers and (systematic) reviews (or meta-analyses) that contribute to the following:

  • Theoretically driven explanations of cognitive development and differences with typical development in children born DHH;
  • Insights into neurobiological or neurocognitive factors involved in deafness and cognitive development;
  • Risk and protective factors for cognitive skills in children born DHH;
  • How studies of DHH children inform us about the role of cognitive abilities and language development in the wider hearing-child population;
  • Challenges, strategies, and interventions in cognitive and language skills with DHH children.

Prof. Dr. Gary Morgan
Dr. Mario Figueroa González
Dr. Beatriz de Diego-Lázaro
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • deaf
  • hard of hearing
  • cochlear implants
  • hearing aids
  • signed languages
  • executive function
  • cognition
  • theory of mind
  • language development
  • word learning

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

14 pages, 701 KiB  
Article
Early Access to Sign Language Boosts the Development of Serial Working Memory in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children
by Brennan P. Terhune-Cotter and Matthew W. G. Dye
Behav. Sci. 2025, 15(7), 919; https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15070919 - 7 Jul 2025
Viewed by 330
Abstract
Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children are often reported to show deficits on working memory (WM) tasks. These deficits are often characterized as contributing to their struggles to acquire spoken language. Here we report a longitudinal study of a large (N = 103) sample [...] Read more.
Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children are often reported to show deficits on working memory (WM) tasks. These deficits are often characterized as contributing to their struggles to acquire spoken language. Here we report a longitudinal study of a large (N = 103) sample of DHH children who acquired American Sign Language (ASL) as their first language. Using an n-back working memory task, we show significant growth in WM performance across the 7–13-year-old age range. Furthermore, we show that children with early access to ASL from their DHH parents demonstrate faster WM growth and that this group difference is mediated by ASL receptive skills. The data suggest the important role of early access to perceivable natural language in promoting typical WM growth during the middle school years. We conclude that the acquisition of a natural visual–gestural language is sufficient to support the development of WM in DHH children. Further research is required to determine how the timing and quality of ASL exposure may play a role, or whether the effects are driven by acquisition-related corollaries, such as parent–child interactions and maternal stress. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language and Cognitive Development in Deaf Children)
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