pre and post lingual

[Guest guest]

Thanks, Beth,

I was thinking in terms of learning to speak if all you've ever done

is sign. But you are right, if you are deaf before acquiring language,

you are pre lingual. And the outcomes are vastly different for pre

lingual vs post lingual in terms of speed and acquisition of sound.

Subject: prelingual

,

Actually, you are prelingually deaf if you are deaf before langauge

development. Whether you can get enough benefit from hearing aids or

CI's

to develop speech or not, you're still deaf. Also, speech is NOT

language,

there is a difference between learning to speak and acquiring language.

Prelingually deafened individuals can develop language through the use of

residual hearing, CI's, and/or sign language. Deaf children can learn

speech through practice and training, whether they can hear the speech or

not. A prelingually deafened child is going to have a more difficult

time

acquiring language than a postlingually deafened child, and they will

require different methods of education to ensure that they do, in fact,

acquire language rather than simply learning to speak. One of the

reasons

for the average reading level of deaf high school graduates being the at

4th

grade level is because of the lack of language development before the age

of

six. This is true of both prelingually Deaf adults and prelingually deaf

adults. Those children who are provided with the access to language,

either

spoken or signed, before the age of six generally do quite well, and the

earlier the access to a complete language is provided, the better the

outcome.

Beth