Languages and Thought

well, not types, causes rather, I suppose.

Sozo, most of those things seem fairly obvious, pretty much what I would expect from kids raised in that situation. I thought you said there were specifically mental deficiencies, not just the usual ones caused by langauge environment and culture?

Usual and specific are not mutually exclusive.

Ooh, Crave. . . just the person I've been looking for. . . got a question for ya. . .

I'm not contrasting "usual" and "specific". I'm contrasting "mental deficiencies" and "deficiencies caused by langauge environment and culture".

No, you're not. You're contrasting "mental deficiencies" with "cognitive delays." The "cognitive delays" one is what I addressed. And when you figure out the difference between "mental deficiencies" and "cognitive delays", knock yourself out on Google, 'cause I've pretty much lost patience with this little game of Whack-A-Strawman.

Oh and forgot to respond to P'ash's question about inherited deafness... yep, one thing I found online while researching for rufio said that 50% of all deafness is genetic. That seems a little high to me. The figure I'm sure of is that 90% of deaf people have hearing parents, but I guess it could be a recessive gene thing, with the only other deaf person in the family being second cousin Natasha.

Currently a lot of the newly diagnosed infants in America are deaf with other disabilities -- they are the babies who had traumatic and/ or early births, and probably wouldn't have lived in previous eras. That's a whole 'nother kettle of fish in deaf education, dealing with children who have no disabilities except for deafness as well as multi-disabled children. The two groups are usually thrown together, while they have very different needs.

"Cognitive delays"? I'm not in on your jargon. I mean langauge-specific problems. I thought you were talking about this affecting their actions as a whole. My bad.

Sozo, some of the deaf children with hearing parents might have inherited the deafness from a grandparent or something. But if the grandparent was deaf than I guess the parents would be better equipped to deal with deaf children of their own - but maybe not. Who knows.

Just out of curiosity, what about children who were born deaf and then given surgery or some type of procedure to allow them to hear again? Are they at about the same level as the deaf children raised by hearing parents?

rufio, that last question is a GIANT can of worms.

If I'm using terminology you don't get, stop me and I'll explain. I've been talking about the fact that deaf kids with hearing parents whose deafness is not diagnosed until they are say two or three years old, and who then are often still not exposed to true, accessible language for even longer, experience significant cognitive delays. Cognition basically just means thinking. Their ability to think is impaired. Language is especially affected, but there are more general implications as well, how they use logic, solve problems, etc.

I'll give a short answer to your question about "surgery or some type of procedure to allow them to hear again", and then if there is more interest (and if rosborne says it's fine to take the thread further off track... I'll start a new thread if not) I'll go into it further.

To take a theoretical situation where a child was deaf from 0-3 and then miraculously regained his hearing completely, he would still be seriously impacted. He might be able to make up lost ground somewhat, but so many critical things happen in the development of the mind and cognition in that period that are dependent on language. So if an 18 year old who had been deaf 0-3 and then had perfect hearing was compared to an 18 year old who has been deaf from birth, both with hearing parents, the one that was currently hearing would probably be better off, but still have significant problems.

The thing is, that I speak in terms of "theoretical", "might", and "probably" because when these surgeries do take place, it is not nearly so simple as restoring the child's hearing. And that's where I could go off on a really long tangent, which some people here have already seen, so I'll hold off for now.

Quick note, I have been using "hearing parents" as shorthand for "clueless people who don't know ASL, don't know their child is deaf, and don't learn ASL", which unfortunately describes a lot of them. BUT, not all of them. Many parents do learn ASL as soon as they can and do figure out their child's deafness early, and deaf children with these kinds of parents do much, much better. The main thing is just exposure to an accessible language, the audiogram of the person providing the language is irrelevant.

Where's your thread on cochlear implants, soz?

Found it, I think... not what I was looking for, but what I was looking for was on Abuzz, perhaps.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=245316#245316

Oh, I think you're right.

"Their ability to think is impaired. Language is especially affected, but there are more general implications as well, how they use logic, solve problems, etc."

That's what I was asking about. If this impairment only exhibits itself in linguistic contexts - that is, in solving problems given to them in language, or reasoning through language - than how do you know it's really about how they think and not just their mastry of language? Do these kids lack ability to get jobs? Be productive? Do math problems? What?

Thanks for answering the second question.

Actually, I met this young (hearing) couple on a plane once who were teaching their (hearing) toddler both English and ASL, and she was picking them both up reasonably well. I think that's really cool.

Yep, that's what we were talking about a coupla pages back. (Hearing parents teaching hearing kids ASL.)

And back several pages there was a cite about non-linguistic impairments. It's not just through language, no. It's not just "Please take the red string and place it through the red button and then put it in the yellow bucket", and not being able to follow those instructions. It's non-linguistic logic, too... categorizing, fixing a broken object, figuring out cause and effect, etc., etc.

So, yes, they have a harder time getting jobs, being productive, etc. Cognitive delays = difficulty thinking, period.

What do you mean specifically by "figuring out cause and effect"? As for fixing a broken object - what are the fixing, and how do they compare to kids with deaf parents who have similar exposure to this object? I've been exposed to language all my life, and I don't think I could fix anything, no matter how simple. Categorizing is largely dependant on language as well.

Well, yeah. I mean, that's what we're saying. All kinds of thought processes are dependent on language in some way. Give me an example of a thought process that has nothing to do with language, in your definition, and I'll go from there.

The basic premise here is that lack of language affects cognition in general. Are you questioning that? As ehBeth, dlowan and others have said, thats really not up for debate, and there are a lot of resources out there for ya.

If you have more specific questions about deafness, I'll keep going with this. But if you're rejecting that basic premise, this is kind of a lost cause.

Well, being given a general objective and working out the steps on one's own. Symmetry reasoning, or more graphical/geometrical tests such as the one where you fold a peice of paper, punch a hole in it, and predict where the holes will be when unfolded. Math. Music. Finding one's way using maps. Coordination, concentrating on more than one thing at a time. Art, drawing, sculpture. The list can go on. Are children ever analyized in this way? Are they ever taught in those ways? That might understand why they have trouble getting jobs.

Yes, I'm questioning that lack of language affects cognition in general. I've heard plenty of opinions and testemonials that show that this is not the case, in fact, all of the resources I have looked at say that as well. I'm not rejecting anything outright - I'm asking for information which I'm sure you must have, having worked with these kids. I've heard one side of this debate in a good deal of detail, and I'm trying to get a sense of the other one.

I'd like some resources/ quotes from the side of the debate that says lack of language doesn't affect cognition in general.

My first link indicated some of the analysis you are asking for:



In other words, they tested in a way that specifically took language out of the equation, and found that the delays were independent of language. If weakness in language was the only weakness, they should do better at tasks that require minimal language. That was what I was getting at with following complex steps, as well. It's not so much about understanding the individual words -- they did.

There is a list of references if you'd like to investigate and find exactly what was tested and how at the end of that article:

http://www.asha.org/about/publications/leader-online/archives/2002/f021203.htm

Here's one about math:



In other words, better language skills correllated with better math skills, specifically the role of an "inner voice".

Here's the thing, rufio -- I have worked with deaf kids and deaf adults and have lots of anecdotal observations. Deaf children and adults who were not exposed to language as young children have cognitive delays. It is an obvious, common-knowledge sort of thing. The delays go across the board. Math, logic, finding one's way using maps, concentrating, any cognitive function. Some areas show more severe delays than others.

And yes, of course, how they are taught is important. My position is not that deaf people are inherently stupid... quite the opposite. My position is that deaf babies need to start getting early intervention and exposure to language right away, and that with this sort of exposure and appropriate teaching, they will grow into children and adults WITHOUT these delays.

Makes sense. Math, after all, is a language.