Rethinking language education for deaf and deafblind children: deprivation or prevention?

Abstract

Morales López's (2024) work, "Linguistic Deprivation in Deaf and Deafblind Childhood and Adolescence," constitutes an essential contribution to the vindication and understanding of the linguistic rights of deaf and deafblind people. In this work, the author addresses the need to establish, from an early age, a model of intermodal bilingualism in the education of the community, in sign and oral languages, to avoid the consequences for the development of any individual of not adequately acquiring a natural language in the first years of life. For the first time in our country, the phenomenon of linguistic deprivation is explicitly analyzed, and the results of an education traditionally based on an oralist methodology, which prioritizes the hearing rehabilitation of the deaf and deafblind population through the use of prostheses such as cochlear implants, are questioned from a linguistic, psycholinguistic, and neurolinguistic perspective. Despite technological advances and current legislation, in this publication, Morales López denounces with academic rigor the violation of fundamental rights observed in this group through the various cases of deprivation or semi-lingualism he has documented to date. The testimonies and examples he provides throughout the text also demonstrate the limitations that the healthcare and education systems still impose on families when it comes to providing them with the means and resources necessary to promote, as soon as possible, the learning and use of a sign language as a first language, ensuring the comprehensive development of their deaf or deafblind children. The interdisciplinary and informative nature of the work makes it a reference reading for families, professionals, and students involved in the fields of healthcare and education.