How Might Hearing Parents Foster Gesture Creation in Their Deaf Children?

The deaf children we study are not exposed to a conventional sign language and thus cannot be fashioning their gestures after such a system. They are, however, exposed to the gestures that their parents use when they speak—and these gestures could serve as a model for the deaf children’s system. Moreover, the deaf children’s gestures evoke reactions from their parents—and these parental responses might also help shape the deaf children’s system.