PSY 3136 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Prelingual Deafness, Otitis Media, Language Isolate

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 3136
• Professor: Christopher Fennell

Document Summary

Interesting for basic researchers because it answers the question of whether language is bound to speech. Back in the day the debate was is the signed language real or not and if you are not exposed to language do you even have it (answer is yes and yes) Prelingually deaf, not hard-of-hearing or otitis media. Prelingually deaf: acquiring a severe hair impairment in infancy or innate impairment. >60db = atypical lang development; >90db = intervention required (can"t acquire a oral language but us asl) Major issue: relative lack of native signers (10%). Only 10% are born to a deaf parent. Those who are taught oral language provide interesting data in 2 ways: Home signs: linguistic isolates; words and grammar innate. Born to hearing parents and parents don"t know asl, then they are linguistic isolates so they can"t get language as nobody understands, so the home makes their own personal signs to communicate. These home signs are similar across the world.