A concise guide explains the current research on the development of deaf children, urges the importance of communication with deaf children by sign language as early as possible, and provides information on resources for the deaf and their parents. UP.

Deaf children are not hearing children who can't hear, and having a deaf child is not analogous to having a hearing child who can't hear. Beyond any specific effects of hearing loss, deaf children are far more diverse than their hearing age-mates. A lack of access to language, limited incidental learning and social interactions, as well as the possibility of secondary disabilities, mean that deaf children face a variety of challenges in language, social, and academic domains. In recent years, technological innovations such as digital hearing aids and cochlear implants have improved hearing and the possibility of spoken language for many deaf learners, but parents, teachers, and other professionals are just now coming to recognize the cognitive, experiential, and social-emotional differences between deaf and hearing children. Sign languages and schools and programs for deaf learners thus remain an important part of the continuum of services needed for this population. Understanding the unique strengths and needs of deaf children is the key. Now in its third edition, Marc Marschark's Raising and Educating a Deaf Child, which has helped a countless number of families, offers a comprehensively clear, evidence-based guide to the choices, controversies, and decisions faced by parents and teachers of deaf children today.

This book is the first comprehensive examination of the psychological development of deaf children. Because the majority of young deaf children (especially those with non-signing parents) are reared in language-impoverished environments, their social and cognitive development may differ markedly from hearing children. The author here details those potential differences, giving special attention to how the psychological development of deaf children is affected by their interpersonal communication with parents, peers, and teachers. This careful and balanced consideration of existing evidence and research provides a new psychological perspective on deaf children and deafness while debunking a number of popular notions about the hearing impaired. In light of recent findings concerning manual communication, parent-child interactions, and intellectual and academic assessments of hearing-impaired children, the author has forged an integrated understanding of social, language, and cognitive development as they are affected by childhood deafness. Empirical evaluations of deaf children's intellectual and academic abilities are stressed throughout. The Psychological Development of Deaf Children will be of great interest to students, teachers, and researchers studying deafness and how it relates to speech and hearing; developmental, social, and cognitive psychology; social work; and medicine.

This sensitive guide is firm support in helping parents make their difficult choices.

A mother whose child has had a cochlear implant tells Laura Mauldin why enrollment in the sign language program at her daughter’s school is plummeting: “The majority of parents want their kids to talk.” Some parents, however, feel very differently, because “curing” deafness with cochlear implants is uncertain, difficult, and freighted with judgment about what is normal, acceptable, and right. Made to Hear sensitively and thoroughly considers the structure and culture of the systems we have built to make deaf children hear. Based on accounts of and interviews with families who adopt the cochlear implant for their deaf children, this book describes the experiences of mothers as they navigate the health care system, their interactions with the professionals who work with them, and the influence of neuroscience on the process. Though Mauldin explains the politics surrounding the issue, her focus is not on the controversy of whether to have a cochlear implant but on the long-term, multiyear undertaking of implantation. Her study provides a nuanced view of a social context in which science, technology, and medicine are trusted to vanquish disability—and in which mothers are expected to use these tools. Made to Hear reveals that implantation has the central goal of controlling the development of the deaf child’s brain by boosting synapses for spoken language and inhibiting those for sign language, placing the politics of neuroscience front and center. Examining the consequences of cochlear implant technology for professionals and parents of deaf children, Made to Hear shows how certain neuroscientific claims about neuroplasticity, deafness, and language are deployed to encourage compliance with medical technology.