Enhanced gaze‐following behavior in Deaf infants of Deaf parents

Rechele Brooks A · Jenny L. Singleton · Andrew N. Meltzoff

108 citations0/0 files storedDevelopmental Science

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Hearing Impairment and Communication Language Development and Disorders Child and Animal Learning Development

Abstract

Gaze following plays a role in parent-infant communication and is a key mechanism by which infants acquire information about the world from social input. Gaze following in Deaf infants has been understudied. Twelve Deaf infants of Deaf parents (DoD) who had native exposure to American Sign Language (ASL) were gender-matched and age-matched (±7 days) to 60 spoken-language hearing control infants. Results showed that the DoD infants had significantly higher gaze-following scores than the hearing infants. We hypothesize that in the absence of auditory input, and with support from ASL-fluent Deaf parents, infants become attuned to visual-communicative signals from other people, which engenders increased gaze following. These findings underscore the need to revise the 'deficit model' of deafness. Deaf infants immersed in natural sign language from birth are better at understanding the signals and identifying the referential meaning of adults' gaze behavior compared to hearing infants not exposed to sign language. Broader implications for theories of social-cognitive development are discussed. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/QXCDK_CUmAI.

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References

1998Social Cognition, Joint Attention, and Communicative Competence from 9 to 15 Months of Age 1986Joint Attention and Early Language 2004Chasing the Mythical Ten Percent: Parental Hearing Status of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students in the United States 1991What minds have in common is space: Spatial mechanisms serving joint visual attention in infancy 2007Individual Differences and the Development of Joint Attention in Infancy 2007Language and Theory of Mind: A Study of Deaf Children 2009Differences in Early Gesture Explain SES Disparities in Child Vocabulary Size at School Entry 2002The importance of eyes: How infants interpret adult looking behavior.

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2022The Oxford Handbook of the Mental Lexicon 2021Language not auditory experience is related to parent-reported executive functioning in preschool-aged deaf and hard-of-hearing children 2024Family-Centered Early Intervention Deaf/Hard of Hearing (FCEI-DHH): Guiding Values 2024Family-Centered Early Intervention Deaf/Hard of Hearing (FCEI-DHH): Support Principles 2020Social and emotional contexts predict the development of gaze following in early infancy

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