ABSTRACT
There is no single route to the acquisition of language, and children, particularly in early childhood, show a large range of individual variation both in their speed of development and in the strategies they employ. Their progress through early language might be thought of as a journey through an epigenetic landscape rather than a passage through a linear succession of stages. This notion is most convincingly demonstrated along studies that compared the language development of deaf children with that of hearing children. Recent studies of signed language development in children growing up in a signing environment from birth reported that the language is acquired by much the same route as spoken language (Caselli, 1983, 1987; Volterra, 1981; Volterra & Caselli, 1985). First signs appear at a similar time to first words. When deaf children first use signs, they do so to refer to objects, individuals, and events with which they become familiar within the social-interactional context, just as hearing children initially use words. The learning of early sign combinations is also comparable to the learning of early word combinations as is the mastery of syntax.
