Created for the interpreter, speech aid, or parent

By Michelle Radin

With a special thanks to Kim Ward, Krista Galyen, Joyce Dale, and Patricia McDaid

Download curriculum in PDF format

Some of the titles of speech sounds were taken from the speech development program LIPS: The Lindamood® Phoneme Sequencing Program for Reading, Spelling, and Speech—Third Edition, available here. Continue Reading

Language Development

Language development is a massive topic to conquer within a few paragraphs; many people make their careers and livelihoods from studying language development. However, here we will try to summarize it shortly in the hopes that this bit of general information can better help you understand the perspective of your student or child with a hearing loss.

Children are excellent mimickers of adults, of their parents, and of older siblings. Their innate drive to be like their mom and dad drives them toward learning, amongst many other things, language. Attempting to copy what they see, what they hear, are some of children’s beginning steps in acquiring language.

When a child with normal hearing is learning a new language or a new word, even as an adult, some of the same things always happen. First, a user of the language says the word and the child listens. The child will then try to copy the word. As the child is saying the word, s/he is listening to himself/herself and monitoring the sound. By listening and comparing it to how the user said the word, the child will know either to attempt the word again (trying to get the sounds correct), or feel satisfied that s/he said the word correctly.

That is merely the word component of language. There is also the grammar and syntax component of language. Many times we know the correct grammar usage by the simple fact “it just feels right.” People with normal hearing have heard the spoken grammar thousands even millions of times; they have acquired the grammar rules by listening and using them.

Now there is a whole lot more to language development than what is presented here. By no means feel that this is all there is to language development. However, this will help give you the basics when presented with some of the concepts below. Continue Reading