This chapter focuses on children's language acquisition in relation to the language models provided by their mothers. All of the deaf children considered in this chapter had their hearing loss diagnosed and intervention services started before 1 year of age. In fact, all of the deaf children included here were diagnosed with a hearing loss by 6 months of age, making them similar to the population of early diagnosed children on which Yoshinaga–Itano and her colleagues have focused. Unlike the Yoshinaga–Itano and Moeller reports, the present study provides information about language functioning...

This chapter focuses on children's language acquisition in relation to the language models provided by their mothers. All of the deaf children considered in this chapter had their hearing loss diagnosed and intervention services started before 1 year of age. In fact, all of the deaf children included here were diagnosed with a hearing loss by 6 months of age, making them similar to the population of early diagnosed children on which Yoshinaga–Itano and her colleagues have focused. Unlike the Yoshinaga–Itano and Moeller reports, the present study provides information about language functioning from direct observations of deaf children with deaf parents (Dd) and hearing children with deaf parents (Dh) as well as a comparison group of hearing children with hearing parents (Hh).