Psychological Development of Deaf Children

I specifically went to read what Marschark has written about intelligence, memory, and attention in deaf children. Since I am totally deaf, I recognize some of the problems that arise when a child is presented with nothing but verbal/oral material in a learning situation. Marschark did more research than he needed to or others would have done, and he pulls all the research together to make a comprehensible whole. The references he provides in this book are valuable for referring back to and reading on their own, since he places them in context. This book was published in 1993, and I really think an update is needed because neuroscience has found out some significant information over the last few years that apply to teaching and understanding the workings of the mind in the presence of deafness or hearing loss. For example, it has been shown that prelingually-deafened adults use their auditory cortex when lipreading or using American Sign Language. This indicates a rewiring of the brain which occurs in children whose deafness is caught early enough to use manual language with or teach lipreading skills to. This information could be vitally important in teaching those with hearing loss, and also be used to pressure Congress to demand that all newborns be tested for hearing loss prior to leaving the hospital. The importance of determining hearing loss early is mandatory to providing these children with educational opportunities early enough to make up for their diversity (I refuse to call it a disability when the Deaf community does not recognize it as such).

Marschark writes well. The book is immensely readable. He also provides enough information to show that deafness does not equate with lack of intelligence, for which I am supremely thankful. Karen Sadler, Science Education, University of Pittsburgh