1 language learning in early childhood preview

participation of many teachers and therapists, including Susan Curtiss (1977).
After a brief period in a rehabilitation centre, she lived in a foster home and
attended special schools. Genie made remarkable progress in becoming
socialized and cognitively aware. She developed deep personal relationships
and strong individual tastes and traits. Nevertheless, after five years of
exposure to language, Genie’s language was not like that of a typical five-
year old. There was a larger than ‘normal’ gap between comprehension and
production. She used grammatical forms inconsistently and overused
formulaic and routine speech. Genie’s life was studied and analysed by
researchers and therapists in the years after her discovery and many observers
were struck by the resilience she showed in some aspects of her life (see, for
example, Rymer, 1994). However, she never achieved a level of language that
would be considered typical for a person of her age or even of a much
younger child.
Although Victor and Genie appear to provide evidence in support of the CPH,
it is difficult to argue that the hypothesis is confirmed on the basis of
evidence from their stories. Due to the circumstances of these tragic lives, we
cannot know what factors besides biological maturity might have contributed
to the failure to acquire normal linguistic ability. Sadly, similar cases have
been reported in both scientific and popular publications. It is possible that
some of the children suffered from brain damage, developmental delays, or a
specific language impairment, even before they were separated from normal
human interaction.
A more appropriate test of the CPH is the case of children who live in homes
where they receive love and care, yet do not have access to language at the
usual time. This is the case for some profoundly deaf children who have
hearing parents. Only 5–10 percent of the profoundly deaf are born to deaf
parents, and only these children are likely to be exposed to sign language

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from birth. Hearing parents may not realize that their child cannot hear
because the child uses other senses to interact with them. Thus, although the
early childhood period may appear to be the same in most ways for both
hearing and deaf children, it may be devoid of language that is accessible to
the deaf child. These children’s later experience in learning sign language has
been the subject of some important research related to the CPH.
Like oral and written languages, sign languages such as