Sign Language for Deaf Children

Last spring the journal Language of the Linguistics Society of America (LSA), one of the most important outlets in the field, published an article entitled Ensuring language acquisition for deaf children: What linguists can do. The authors are several Deaf and hearing researchers. The aim of this paper is to present the available scientific arguments that Linguistics has available to defend that it is necessary to provide a sign language to deaf children from the outset, whether they are implanted or not, to ensure their linguistic, psychological and social development. Since we believe it is important to spread the information contained in this text as broadly as possible, not only among researchers but also among professionals in education and health care, and among those who make policies related to the deaf and sign languages, we decided to translate it into Catalan and Spanish and make it accessible from the home page of the LSC Lab. However, to facilitate access to its content, we also provide a summary of the main ideas signed in LSC and LSE to encourage deaf people to also read it. We hope that you find it compelling and that you draw attention to it among those people who may be interested!