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Enhanced gaze‐following behavior in Deaf infants of Deaf parents
Author(s) -
Brooks Rechele,
Singleton Jenny L.,
Meltzoff Andrew N.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/desc.12900
Subject(s) - gaze , psychology , sign language , american sign language , joint attention , spoken language , language development , developmental psychology , cognition , sign (mathematics) , audiology , cognitive psychology , linguistics , autism , medicine , philosophy , neuroscience , psychoanalysis , mathematical analysis , mathematics
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. 12 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 social-visual 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. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.