Early exposure to signing helps deaf kids on mental task
Developing language skills from birth has benefits in adulthood, study finds
WASHINGTON — Deaf children who learn to sign early may boost their brainpower in ways unrelated to language.
“Most deaf children are born to hearing families, and most hearing parents do not sign with their newborn deaf children,” clinical neuropsychologist Peter Hauser, who is deaf, explained February 12 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “The deaf children, as a consequence, have very limited exposure to sign language,” signed Hauser, of Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.