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Introduction Using the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as example, we argue that regulatory agencies worldwide should review their guidance on cochlear implants (CIs). Methods This is a position paper, thus the methods are strictly argumentation. Here we give the motivation for our recommendation. The FDA's original approval of implantation in prelingually deaf children was granted without full benefit of information on language acquisition, on childcaregiver communication, and on the lived experience of being deaf. The CI clinical trials, accordingly, did not address risks of linguistic deprivation, especially when the caregiver's communication is not fully accessible to the prelingually deaf child. Wide variability in the effectiveness of CIs since initial and updated approval has been indicated but has not led to new guidance. Children need to be exposed frequently and regularly to accessible natural language while their brains are still plastic enough to become fluent in any language. For the youngest infants, who are not yet producing anything that could be called language although they might be producing salient social signals (Goldstein et al. Child Dev 80:636-644, 2009), good comprehension of communication from caregiver to infant is critical to the development of language. Sign languages are accessible natural languages that, because they are visual, allow full immersion for deaf infants, and they supply the necessary support for this comprehension. The main language contributor to health outcomes is this combination of natural visual language and comprehension in communication. Accordingly, in order to prevent possible language deprivation, all prelingually deaf children should be exposed to both sign and spoken languages when their auditory status is detected, with sign language being critical during infancy and early childhood. Additionally, all caregivers should be given support to learn a sign language if it is new to them so that they can comprehend their deaf children's language expressions fully. However, both languages should be made accessible in their own right, not combined in a simultaneous or total communication approach since speaking one language and signing the other at the same time is problematic. Results Again, because this is a position paper, our results are our recommendations. We call for the FDA (and similar agencies in other countries) to review its approval of cochlear implantation in prelingually deaf children who are within the sensitive period for language acquisition. In the meantime, the FDA should require manufacturers to add a highlighted warning to the effect that results with CI vary widely and CIs should not be relied upon to provide adequate auditory input for complete language development in all deaf children. Recent best information on users' experience with CIs (including abandonment) should be clearly provided so that informed decisions can be made. The FDA should require manufacturers' guidance and information materials to include encouragement to parents of deaf children to offer auditory input of a spoken language and visual input of a sign language and to have their child followed closely from birth by developmental specialists in language and cognition. In this way parents can align with providers to prioritize cognitive development and language access in both audio-vocal and visuo-gestural modalities. Discussion The arguments and recommendations in this paper are discussed at length as they come up., Author(s): Tom Humphries [sup.1] , Poorna Kushalnagar [sup.2] , Gaurav Mathur [sup.3] , Donna Jo Napoli [sup.4] , Christian Rathmann [sup.5] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.266100.3, 0000 0001 2107 4242, Education [...]

Deaf people have long held the belief that American Sign Language (ASL) plays a significant role in the academic development of deaf children. Despite this, the education of deaf children has historically been exclusive of ASL and constructed as an English-only, deficit-based pedagogy. Newer research, however, finds a strong correlation between ASL fluency and English literacy, supporting Deaf people's belief. This article describes efforts at the University of California, San Diego to develop and field-test a teacher preparation program that combines best practices in bilingual education and deaf education. The training curriculum designed for this program incorporates cultural practices from the Deaf community into the training of teachers of deaf children, a paradigmatic shift from traditional deaf education pedagogy based on a deficit model to a socio-cultural view of deaf children and their schooling. This shift represents a significant new direction in addressing the chronic poor performance of schools in educating deaf and hard-of-hearing children who as a group are severely under educated. This article also provides background and rationale for the recent approval of ASL authorization on the Multiple Subjects teaching credential in California.

Deaf people have long held the belief that American Sign Language (ASL) plays a significantrole in the academic development of deaf children. Despite this, the education of deaf children hashistorically been exclusive of ASL and constructed as an English-only, deficit-based pedagogy.Newer research, however, finds a strong correlation between ASL fluency and English literacy,supporting Deaf people’s belief. This article describes efforts at the University of California, SanDiego to develop and field-test a teacher preparation program that combines best practices inbilingual education and deaf education. The training curriculum designed for this programincorporates cultural practices from the Deaf community into the training of teachers of deafchildren, a paradigmatic shift from traditional deaf education pedagogy based on a deficit modelto a socio-cultural view of deaf children and their schooling. This shift represents a significantnew direction in addressing the chronic poor performance of schools in educating deaf and hardof-hearing children who as a group are severely undereducated. This article also providesbackground and rationale for the recent approval of ASL authorization on the Multiple Subjectsteaching credential in California.

Abstract Children acquire language without instruction as long as they are regularly and meaningfully engaged with an accessible human language. Today, 80% of children born deaf in the developed world are implanted with cochlear devices that allow some of them access to sound in their early years, which helps them to develop speech. However, because of brain plasticity changes during early childhood, children who have not acquired a first language in the early years might never be completely fluent in any language. If they miss this critical period for exposure to a natural language, their subsequent development of the cognitive activities that rely on a solid first language might be underdeveloped, such as literacy, memory organization, and number manipulation. An alternative to speech-exclusive approaches to language acquisition exists in the use of sign languages such as American Sign Language (ASL), where acquiring a sign language is subject to the same time constraints of spoken language development. Unfortunately, so far, these alternatives are caught up in an "either - or" dilemma, leading to a highly polarized conflict about which system families should choose for their children, with little tolerance for alternatives by either side of the debate and widespread misinformation about the evidence and implications for or against either approach. The success rate with cochlear implants is highly variable. This issue is still debated, and as far as we know, there are no reliable predictors for success with implants. Yet families are often advised not to expose their child to sign language. Here absolute positions based on ideology create pressures for parents that might jeopardize the real developmental needs of deaf children. What we do know is that cochlear implants do not offer accessible language to many deaf children. By the time it is clear that the deaf child is not acquiring spoken language with cochlear devices, it might already be past the critical period, and the child runs the risk of becoming linguistically deprived. Linguistic deprivation constitutes multiple personal harms as well as harms to society (in terms of costs to our medical systems and in loss of potential productive societal participation).

We are probably only at the beginning of our understanding of a period of time that gave us a new name for an old language, "ASL," a new consciousness called "Deaf culture," a national uprising called "DPN," and a science fiction-like new technology called "VP." The two halves of the twentieth century might be viewed as two separate units of analysis. The intent is to examine the second half of the twentieth century, or the period from 1945 to 2000. Key revelations and five critical changes during this period are discussed and contextualized in the article.

The American Deaf community for several decades has been involved in sometimes complicated and often contested ways of defining what it means to be Deaf. It is our thesis that the processes of identity construction and the recent discourse of Deaf identity are not unique phenomena at all but echo the experience of other embedded cultural groups around the world, particularly those that are stressed by the assertion of hegemony over them by others. We turn to 2 particular theorists, Jose Marti and W. E. B. DuBois, to help us understand both the dilemmas that Deaf people face and the possible solutions that they propose. This article argues that identities are constructed not just within Deaf communities but within the social contexts in which Deaf communities are embedded.

This article describes efforts at the University of California, San Diego in the Education Studies Program to develop and field-test a teacher preparation program that combines best practices in bilingual education and deaf education. The training curriculum designed for this program relies on research that finds a correlation between ASL fluency and English literacy. Also discussed is a collaborative project between training faculty and K-12 partners to transition between more traditional deaf education practices and new teaching and assessment practices focused on ASL literacy development as well as development in other languages.

Nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) are characterized by weaknesses in narrative discourse. Thirty-three children (M age=11.7 years), 15 girls and 18 boys, listened to stories to evaluate their narrative comprehension and retelling abilities. Children with NLD (n=11) performed as poorly as children with verbal impairment (n=10) on all narrative measures. Compared to typical controls (n=12), the NLD group was poorer in comprehending inferences, but not facts. They included less of the original content than controls in their story retells, and there were strong trends suggesting fewer utterances and less variety in their vocabulary usage. Results are discussed regarding their implications for understanding the neuropsychological profile of NLD.

The independent and relative influences of social discourse and social skills on problem behaviors were examined in 50 children with language learning disabilities (LLD) and 50 control children. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that both impaired social discourse skills and poor social skills accounted for the negative effects of LLD on children's problem behavior. (DB)

Captive least chipmunks, Tamias minimus, were used in the investigation of the valuation strategy used by this species in assessing the relative value of buried seed patches. In all experiments conducted, the subjects chose the patch from which they have taken less despite experiencing comparable yields from the different patches. Further, they refused to return to depleted patches but made exceptions in cases of replenished patches.

The presumed sensorimotor basis of the nonverbal learning disability syndrome was investigated among 90 learning disabled boys (M age = 6 yr., 8 mo., SD = 12.2 mo.) with sensory integrative dysfunction. The majority of the boys were Caucasian, lower to middle socioeconomic status, and from urban, English-speaking families. 14% (n = 13) of the boys satisfied core discrepancy criteria for nonverbal learning disability, including both a significantly higher Wechsler Verbal than Performance IQ and a higher standard score in Reading than Arithmetic on the Wide Range Achievement Test. Compared with a control group of 19 boys from the same sample who had no significant discrepancies, boys with nonverbal learning disability had significantly greater weaknesses in space visualization and visuomotor coordination. As predicted, rote verbal memory and syntactical strengths were also exhibited by boys with nonverbal learning disability, but the two groups did not differ significantly.