The Role of Parents in Developing Visual Turn-Taking in Their Young Deaf Children

Abstract

Young deaf children use their vision to gather both language input and information about the environment. This dual requirement greatly complicates conversational turn-taking for the children and their parents, particularly when interaction centers on a visual focus such as a book. Data are presented here on the onset and maintenance of visual attention to signing in three profoundly deaf children, ages 2;9 - 3;7 years, while interacting with their hearing mothers about a story told through pictures. The data indicate that the children's visual attention in this situation was quite variable, although all of them experienced problems with their need to focus simultaneously on two sources of information: the mother's signs and the picture book. Suggestions for developing visual turn-taking skills are made, based on the research on first-language acquisition and the interactions of deaf mothers with their children.

Analogous and Distinctive Patterns of Prelinguistic Communication in Toddlers With and Without Hearing Loss

“…To achieve shared visual attention, children with profound hearing loss need to simultaneously manage two competing visual stimuli. They must coordinate their looking behavior between the picture in the book and the mother's face, lips, and/or signs that convey the linguistic information (Swisher, 1992).…”

“…The children with hearing loss produced responses, statements, questions, directives, and imitations more or less equally throughout time. As the language gap increased between the children with hearing loss and their hearing age-peers, clear differences emerged between the two groups' utilization of various communicative intentions.Several studies on communication patterns between hearing mothers and their children with hearing loss revealed difficulties faced by the mothers in adapting to the very unique visual needs of their young children (Jamieson, 1994a(Jamieson, , 1994b(Jamieson, , 1998Jamieson & Pederson, 1993;Koester, Karkowski, & Traci, 1998;Prendergast & McCollum, 1996;Spencer & Gutfreund, 1990;Swisher, 1992). For example, in a longitudinal study, MeadowOrlans and Spencer (1996) measured instances of coordinated joint attention in infants and their mothers during free play.…”

“…To achieve shared visual attention, children with profound hearing loss need to simultaneously manage two competing visual stimuli. They must coordinate their looking behavior between the picture in the book and the mother's face, lips, and/or signs that convey the linguistic information (Swisher, 1992).Indeed, in studies comparing the visual behaviors of mother-child dyads with different hearing status, researchers found that hearing mothers and hearing children considerably surpassed mother-child dyads with dissimilarhearing status. This was particularly true with respect to the visual behavior of children with deafness who were studied in contexts of learning new linguistic labels (Jamieson, 1994a(Jamieson, , 1994b(Jamieson, , 1998Jamieson & Pederson, 1993;Koester et al, 1998;Lederberg, 2003;Prendergast & McCollum, 1996;Spencer & Gutfreund, 1990;Swisher, 1992).…”

“…They must coordinate their looking behavior between the picture in the book and the mother's face, lips, and/or signs that convey the linguistic information (Swisher, 1992).…”

“…Several studies on communication patterns between hearing mothers and their children with hearing loss revealed difficulties faced by the mothers in adapting to the very unique visual needs of their young children (Jamieson, 1994a(Jamieson, , 1994b(Jamieson, , 1998Jamieson & Pederson, 1993;Koester, Karkowski, & Traci, 1998;Prendergast & McCollum, 1996;Spencer & Gutfreund, 1990;Swisher, 1992). For example, in a longitudinal study, MeadowOrlans and Spencer (1996) measured instances of coordinated joint attention in infants and their mothers during free play.…”