Deaf and hard of hearing babies and toddlers are in a special situation. The language that their parents and other caregivers use might not be fully accessible to them. Because of this, deaf and hard-of-hearing children have an especially high risk of language delays or language deprivation. Language deprivation occurs when a child doesn’t fully acquire any language, and it has devastating life-long effects. Numerous studies show that the best way to make sure deaf children acquire language on time is to use a bilingual approach, providing rich language models and conversations in both English and ASL, beginning as early as possible.

The first few years of a child’s life are crucial for language development. If kids don’t get early exposure to accessible language, it’s very hard for them to catch up later. This is true for everybody, but most of the time babies acquire language without their parents having to do very much work. Most of that process happens by the time a child is age 3 or 4 years old. As long as parents and other caregivers talk to each other, and to the child, that child will figure out how to speak whatever language she’s exposed to.

Some families are lucky enough to live in areas with large populations of deaf people, and they can provide access to ASL (and learn it themselves) by joining the local deaf community. In Montana and many other remote or rural areas, deaf children often live far from any active deaf communities, and their families are often unable to access ASL resources like classes, signing playmates, fluent signing language models, qualified professionals, interpreters, and deaf mentors. Montana Family ASL provides support and resources for families with deaf children who don’t have access to a local deaf community.