Deafness, cognition and language

This opening chapter sets the scene for the volume by describing in the first section what researchers mean by a native user of a signed language, and what differences exist between the deaf child who has deaf parents and those in the vast majority of cases from hearing families. This experience of late or reduced exposure to accessible language can have far reaching consequences and in this introduction chapter the areas of early interaction and later cognitive development are highlighted. The second half of the chapter describes the contents of the book by summarizing the key findings from each chapter. The chapter concludes with some future research questions for language development research that follow on from this volume.