Deaf and Disability in Early Childhood

Research

The Deaf & Disability in Early Childhood Center (DDECC) engages families, educators, service providers, medical and allied health professionals, and anyone working in systems that promote research and policy for deaf children, children with disabilities, and families within 5 focus areas:

1. Family-Centered Early Intervention

Family-Centered Early Intervention refers to early and timely access to appropriate, effective supports to optimize child development and family well-being.

It is important to consider families’ strengths, needs, and values as well as cultural and global implications of family-centered early intervention for children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (FCEI-DHH).

What do we mean by family?

Families can include:

  • parents & caregivers
  • extended family, like aunts, uncles, and cousins
  • neighbors and friends who are highly involved with the child
  • anyone involved in a child’s care who is deemed to be “family”

What are the implications of Family-Centered Early Intervention?

By providing support to families of deaf children early in the child’s life, Family-Centered Early Intervention (FCEI) strives to prevent or minimize delays and optimize child development.

Professionals in FCEI can partner with families, helping them gain knowledge and skills to nurture their child’s growth. FCEI has the potential to contribute to positive family outcomes, including well-being.

Resources

Explore the following resources by Dr. Szarkowski and colleagues for more information on FCEI:

2. Parenting Deaf Children

Raising children who are deaf is a unique experience that can be both wonderful and daunting. An important component of this experience is Parent-Child Interactions: the unique interactions between young children and their caregivers that are foundational to development.

Why are Parent-Child Interactions important for children and families who are deaf and hard of hearing?

Parent-child interactions, or PCI, is an umbrella construct that explores and explains the mutual exchanges that parents/caregivers and their infants/young children have with each other.

Through PCI, parents and their children both influence their interactions. Caregivers respond to their child’s emotional cues and children engage and draw in their caregiver’s attention. PCI can be especially important for families with deaf children because it sets the expectations for engagement and communication.

Resources

Explore the following resources by Dr. Szarkowski and colleagues for more information about parenting deaf children and parent-child interaction:

3. Pragmatics (Social Communication)

Pragmatics involves social interactional abilities that promote shared exchanges, including understanding of language, contextual, and environmental expectations.

Why are Pragmatics important?

Pragmatic development is fundamental to children’s social-cognitive development and to their well-being. Pragmatics inform social exchanges and, as children develop, pragmatic skills become key to maintaining relationships with others.

For a variety of reasons, children who are deaf may be vulnerable to pragmatic developmental challenges. Yet, deaf children can learn pragmatic skills. Pragmatics support has the potential to improve language and communication outcomes, peer and social relationships, and other aspects of development.

Resources

Explore the following resources by Dr. Szarkowski and colleagues for more information about pragmatics:

4. Social-Emotional Functioning

Social-Emotional Functioning refers to the ability for children to identify, recognize, and express emotions appropriately, read others’ emotions, and self-regulate emotions.

Why is Social-Emotional Functioning important?

Social-emotional functioning is a vital aspect of a child’s development. Young deaf children can benefit from support to grow their social-emotional foundational knowledge—such as a vocabulary to help describe emotions—and to understand their own and others’ emotions, regulate them, and respond in socially acceptable ways.

Resources

Take a look at this recorded interview with Dr. Szarkowski (with closed captions) on Social-Emotional Development

5. DeafDisabled

Children who are deaf and have a disability can have unique needs, challenges, and strengths that are best understood by examining both deaf and disability, rather than each experience alone.

Why is important to understand the specific needs DeafDisabled children?

Approximately 40% of deaf children have a diagnosed disability. Children who are DeafDisabled must navigate the world differently from their non-disabled and typically hearing peers. Understanding the specific needs, challenges, and strengths of this population of children can help to promote their optimal development.

Note: Some individuals and communities prefer the terms Deaf + or Deaf with Disability (DWD) to DeafDisabled. If you are unsure of how someone identifies, just ask.

Resources

Explore the following resources by Dr. Szarkowski and colleagues for more information about DeafDisabled children: