Language and Cognitive Development in Deaf Children
A special issue of Behavioral Sciences (ISSN 2076-328X). This special issue belongs to the section "Cognition".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2025 | Viewed by 166
Special Issue Editors
Interests: language and cognitive development; environmental and biological factors and their interplay on development
Interests: language and cognitive development; social-cognition; literacy acquisition and development; speech and language therapy
2. Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, Passeig de la Vall d'Hebron, 171, 08035 Barcelona, Spain
3. Department of Educational Psychology, Universidad de Valladolid, 400005 Segovia, Spain
Interests: language learning; cognitive development; bilingualism; hearing loss
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The language and cognitive development of children who are born deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) is extremely variable, linked to several factors inherent to the child and to the environment they are raised in. The profiles of DHH children have been extensively documented including perceptual abilities, social cognition, language, numeracy, and executive functions. The large variability in outcomes observed in research studies has been linked to several factors including family hearing status (deaf or hearing parents), the availability of hearing technology, and access to appropriate and early interventions. An exploration of how and why deafness influences development can have far-reaching theoretical and clinical implications, for example, for understanding how all children (deaf and hearing) develop language.
Cognitive abilities are related to language development and play a role in the variability observed across all children (deaf and hearing) in how fast and well they learn to communicate. For example, basic attentional control during the first year supports the segmentation of the speech stream and facilitates the beginning of intentional communication. Early inhibitory control and working memory during the first 24 months of life help children to build robust phonological representations with later benefits observed in understanding vocabulary.
We seek to address these and related questions in the present Special Issue of Behavioral Science. To this end, we solicit original research papers and (systematic) reviews (or meta-analyses) that contribute to the following:
- Theoretically driven explanations of cognitive development and differences with typical development in children born DHH;
- Insights into neurobiological or neurocognitive factors involved in deafness and cognitive development;
- Risk and protective factors for cognitive skills in children born DHH;
- How studies of DHH children inform us about the role of cognitive abilities and language development in the wider hearing-child population;
- Challenges, strategies, and interventions in cognitive and language skills with DHH children.
Prof. Dr. Gary Morgan
Dr. Mario Figueroa González
Dr. Beatriz de Diego-Lázaro
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Behavioral Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- deaf
- hard of hearing
- cochlear implants
- hearing aids
- signed languages
- executive function
- cognition
- theory of mind
- language development
- word learning
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: The Development of Working Memory in Deaf Children Who Use American Sign Language
Authors: Matthew Dye; Brennan Terhune-Cotter
Affiliation: Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA; San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA
Abstract: We report of study of ~150 deaf children who use ASL who were assessed longitudinally for a period of three years, with the sample spanning 7 to 13 years of age. An n-back working memory test was administered at four time points, and we also collected audiological and standardized language assessment data. The relative impact of language-based versus sound-based measures on the rate of development of working memory capacity will be presented and discussed.
