ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the development of sign languages by Deaf children who receive fluent input from their signing parents. It includes some discussion of Deaf children whose input, while beginning at birth, is in some sense degraded. Deaf children cannot access their visual language in the womb, but they also begin to detect the linguistic patterns around them in infancy. It is important for deaf children to have early exposure to a sign language in part so that they can go through this process of discovery at the right time, along the way to further milestones of language development. When children start to produce signed words, they frequently use them to name objects, request activities, and engage in social interactions. While there are some sign language users who are truly monolingual, most have some degree of bilingualism, and for some, bilingual language development takes place from birth and/or in very early childhood.
