Deaf children Attending Different School Environments: Sign language abilities and Theory of Mind  

Tomasuolo, Valeri, Di Renzo, Pasqualetti, & Voltera (2012) studied 3 groups of Italian participants. The 3 groups consist of 2 groups of Deaf signing children from 2 different school environments and 1 group of hearing-speaking children. Deaf participants were selected according to whether they had severe or profound bilateral deafness, lack of other deficits, and used Italian Sign Language (LIS) on a daily basis.

The results confirmed the hypothesis that “Deaf children in a bilingual curriculum outperformed Deaf children attending the school with a TA in all tasks and the performance of hearing was in between those of the two deaf groups” (Tomasuolo, et al, 2014, p. 24). It was discovered that there were no significant difference in any of the skills between Deaf children from hearing families and Deaf children with Deaf families. The researchers inferred that the nature of the instructive environment is at times more critical than whether the parents were Deaf or hearing, in language and mentalizing acquisition. 

Reference

Tomasuolo, E., Valeri, G., Di Renzo, A., Pasqualetti, P., & Volterra, V. (2012). Deaf children attending different school environments: Sign language abilities and theory of mind. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 18(1), 12-29.