ArticleMaternal and child health journal2017
What You Don't Know Can Hurt You: The Risk of Language Deprivation by Impairing Sign Language Development in Deaf Children.
Article in Maternal and child health journal, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 79 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
79 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 314 citations in OpenAlex.
- The complexity in deaf and hard-of-hearing multilingual learner education.Journal of deaf studies and deaf education · 2026Pooled it
- Experiences who are d/Deaf and queer individuals: a systematic review and meta-synthesis.Journal of deaf studies and deaf education · 2026Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Brain Morphological Modifications in Congenital and Acquired Auditory Deprivation: A Systematic Review and Coordinate-Based Meta-Analysis.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Experiences of professionals in DHH education: challenging communicative monotony.Journal of deaf studies and deaf education · 2026Article
- Perceptions of Deaf education in the Deaf community.Journal of deaf studies and deaf education · 2026Article
- Instructional Practices for Signed Literacy: Observations of 38 Deaf Education Classrooms.Language teaching research · 2026Article
- Avoiding unintended consequences: science of reading policies may harm deaf children.Journal of deaf studies and deaf education · 2026Article
- Fingerspelling as a pathway to deaf children's reading: a scoping review.Journal of deaf studies and deaf education · 2026Article
- Assessment of the Quality of Life and Communication Needs of Deaf Ecuadorians.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2026Article
- Impacts of hearing history, etiology, vestibular and balance function, and socioeconomic marginalization on developmental outcomes in children with cochlear implants.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Responses and Nonresponses in a Bound Morpheme Elicitation Task by Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR · 2026Article
- Understanding future anxiety and adaptive coping through a mixed-methods lens: experiences of female hard of hearing students in Saudi Arabia.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- The impact of language proficiency on task-dependent neural activity and functional connectivity: insights from deafness.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- Predictors of health literacy among Deaf American Sign Language users.Patient education and counseling · 2026Article
- Access to information in deaf and hard-of-hearing people.PloS one · 2026Article
- From words to sentences: designing and evaluating a parent-facing sign language learning app.Universal access in the information society · 2026Article
- Navigating sign language learning: insights from hearing parents of deaf and hard-of-hearing children.Journal of deaf studies and deaf education · 2025Article
- DESIGNING STRATEGIC AND INTERACTIVE SIGNING INSTRUCTION TO SUPPORT SIGNED LITERACY FOR DEAF LEARNERS.International journal of designs for learning · 2025Article
- Social determinants of access to health care among deaf people in the Dominican Republic: a qualitative study.BMC global and public health · 2025Article
19 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
A long-standing belief is that sign language interferes with spoken language development in deaf children, despite a chronic lack of evidence supporting this belief. This deserves discussion as poor life outcomes continue to be seen in the deaf population. This commentary synthesizes research outcomes with signing and non-signing children and highlights fully accessible language as a protective factor for healthy development. Brain changes associated with language deprivation may be misrepresented as sign language interfering with spoken language outcomes of cochlear implants. This may lead to professionals and organizations advocating for preventing sign language exposure before implantation and spreading misinformation. The existence of one-time-sensitive-language acquisition window means a strong possibility of permanent brain changes when spoken language is not fully accessible to the deaf child and sign language exposure is delayed, as is often standard practice. There is no empirical evidence for the harm of sign language exposure but there is some evidence for its benefits, and there is growing evidence that lack of language access has negative implications. This includes cognitive delays, mental health difficulties, lower quality of life, higher trauma, and limited health literacy. Claims of cochlear implant- and spoken language-only approaches being more effective than sign language-inclusive approaches are not empirically supported. Cochlear implants are an unreliable standalone first-language intervention for deaf children. Priorities of deaf child development should focus on healthy growth of all developmental domains through a fully-accessible first language foundation such as sign language, rather than auditory deprivation and speech skills.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.