Language Acquisition and Social Interaction: Zachary's Report

This report presents a case study of Zachary, a child with hearing impairment, and his journey of language acquisition. Born with hearing loss, Zachary underwent various assessments and interventions, including oral-aural and auditory-verbal therapies, to develop his communication skills. The ...Read More

Running Head: RESEAECH BY READING REPORT – LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Title:
“Language development theory paying additional value to English language”
ABSTRACT
Zachary was identified with hearing impairment immediate after his birth. As a general
reason his parents were in mental pressure. Language development is a long term process as
seen in the case of Zachary. He was identified with severe impairment in right ear and
moderate impairment in left ear due to presence of a kind of fluid. The entire paper records
the process Zachary went through in terms of develop his communication skill through
various linguistic therapies. Doctor suggested three possible therapies namely Total
communication, Bilingual, and Oral-aural approach. His parents selected the therapy of Oral-
aural therapy.
This approach stresses on lip reading instead of sign language. Zachary also started
developing language through lip reading. At the age of six months he was implanted with
inner cochlear as a hearing aid. Developing hearing with the help of any supporting aid is
known as audio-verbal therapy. Trainer provides one-to-one training for this development. It
refers to individual care provided by the trainer. According to the scenario, Zachary exhibits
the traits of Theory of social interaction in language acquisition of Deaf child. This is a
theory where the participant develops language skills through communicating with the
elderly member of the society along with the parents. Zachary succeeded in establishing
himself as a free entity of the mainstream society. He believes that, he can achieve anything
that he plans for in his mind.

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Introduction
This paper is purposefully written on the caesarean baby Zachary about his journey
from birth with hearing impairment towards mainstreaming. As a natural instinct, Zachary’s
mother was expecting a complete healthy baby. The person undergoes the phase of trauma
discovering the fact of her child’s hearing impairment. Zachary’s mother was upset while her
child did not pass the Auditory Brainstem Response test (ABR) and Otoacoustic Emission
test (OAE test). The former test informs about the functioning of the connection between the
inner year called cochlea and the brain. OAE refers to a low-level sound emanated by the
inner year simultaneously or educed by an acoustic stimulus (Wittekindt, Kaiser, & Abel,
2014).
This paper will provide the brief summary of the participant followed by the Social
Interactionist theory. This theory focus on the fact of a good amount of deaf children are
prone to suffer from autism. According to this theory, Zachary will be able to develop
language skills with the help of the adult members of the society. This reflects the mental
condition of the deaf community along with that, it states the probable difficulties a student
can face in acquisition of English language. Acquisition of English language refers to develop
the speaking skill for a deaf child. Hence, this paper intends to demonstrate the importance of
Social Interactionist theory to bring overall development in a hearing-impaired child. Unlike
the mainstream society, language development in deaf community is quite challenging (Apd-
australia.com.au. 2019). The ending note of this article positively provides a solution for the
deaf community to mix in the mainstream society without facing any difficulty. Knowing
from the basic words the participant of this paper will be able to communicate with the peer
group and the family members with fluency and utter confident.

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Participant
Overview
As a response of natural instinct, Zachary’s parents were expecting a healthy baby.
Unfortunately, he was identified with hearing impairment in both of his ears. With the birth
of a deaf child in a family, the child gives birth of deafness for the parents too. It brings
various behavioural and emotional changes in the family. Zachary was a c-sectioned baby
and identified with the special characteristics in the hospital through a test named Auditory
Brainstem Response conducted immediately after birth. He has undergone the same
procedural test after completing one month of age and failed in both the attempts.
Motivated by the victim of similar hearing-impaired patient the parent took the
initiative to bring Zachary in to the mainstream. The specialist suggested three possible ways
to gift Zachary a normal life. These three ways include ‘Total communication approach’, or
‘Bilingual/Bicultural approach’ or ‘auditory verbal/Oral-aural approach’. Zachary’s parent
selected the latest one namely Oral-aural intervention (Dettman et al., 2013). To define this
approach, it can be said that this intervention is based on fundamental premise to acquire
spoken language competence. This paper will evaluate the child’s struggle during the period
of language development along with the recently available language development abilities.
Significance of Oral-aural intervention in Zachary’s journey of language acquisition
can be measured from the conclusion of the case study. Zachary acquainted with the language
development skill with a good efficiency. He has developed both the hearing and speaking
skill. At the age of five Zachary is found to believe in achieving everything in this short span
of life. In his entire journey, he was undergone with the procedure of cochlear implantation.
He acquired the sign language to communicate initially along with his parents. Zachary’s

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case can be a good example of breaking the stereotypical concept of difference between
specially abled child and mainstream society.
Zachary failed in the Auditory Brainstem Resource immediately tested after his birth
and after one month of his birth date. As a reason the doctors have informed about presence
of some kind of fluid in his ears (Brennan‐Jones et al., 2014). To understand the rate of
Zachary’s impairment the doctor provided some clicking sound in his ear through an
earphone but came up with no response. The patient was diagnosed with complete loss of
hearing instead of partial hearing loss. To be very precise the doctor mentioned that Zachary
has severe impairment in the right ear and moderate impairment in the left ear.
Language development is a serious matter for the deaf community. Linguistic
development requires to follow various processes and theories along with some physical
gestures. Language deprivation leads to delay in development of cognitive skills. Hearing-
impaired children often faces disturbance regarding their parental relationship. They often
stick to sign language to communicate with the family members. However, proper theories
and practices make them a part of the mainstream society without any hazard.
Modes and Skills of Language Development
The journey of Zachary’s language development till the age of five has undergone
some procedures that includes Oral-aural intervention, audio-verbal therapy, and acquiring
knowledge of Australian Sign Language (AUSLAN)
Oral-aural Intervention
Analysing the definition of this term it can be said that Oral-aural approach refers to
the deaf education emphasising training of auditory system, articulation capability, and
ability of lip-reading (Brennan‐Jones et al., 2014). This approach includes some universal
features such as American Sign Language. This incorporates with manual language used by

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the deaf educators in United States. This approach do not follows the sign language technique
for deaf education. It only emphasises on learning by lip reading. Identification of the hearing
impairment at the initial stage is the major affecting factor of this approach. The functional
process of Oral-aural intervention is mentioned below
 The educator tries to understand the willingness of the kid about speaking.
 Performing various activities, the educator observes some teachable scopes for the
application of the speech method.
 Teacher points out some difficulties the child is facing while trying to speak applying
the provided speech method.
 According to the observation, the teacher tries to improve the way of training or
application of the approach.
 A quite listening atmosphere is required along with the audibility of the classroom.
In Zachary’s case, also it is visible that he was imposed with minimal audio amplifier to
develop spontaneity in speaking skill. It not only helped him to develop listening skill but
also encouraged his to speak fluently. After starting school Zachary participated in Audio-
verbal Therapy prolonged for two years.
Auditory-verbal Therapy
Through this Audio-visual therapy, Zachary learned about Auslan process, which he
practices with a group of dear children. Zachary’s parents are learning Auslan during the
course of this journey (Napoli et al., 2015).
 Identifies hearing challenges of new born baby and young adolescents.
 The main purpose of this therapy is to manage the audilogical factors and
maintenance of particular hearing aids.

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 It guides the family members and the educators to encourage the child. It also alerts
the surrounding people about the situation of deafness along with the child.
 It helps the student to accept and adopt all types of communication skills and social
development skills.
 It promotes one-to-one learning facility to develop communication skill.
 Children can monitor their own voice and others during the course of this therapy.
 This therapy use identified patterns for development of natural communication.
AUSLAN
The abbreviation Auslan refers to sign language used in Australian deaf society. The
word stands for ‘Australian Sign Language’. It has similar features used in British and New
Zealand sign languages (Walker, 2013). There is an interesting History about the invention of
Auslan rather it was not invented, it is considered as a natural language of the deaf society. It
is the sign a child first use in response to someone’s action, or while conducting any
communication with the family members. It was not originated in Australia, it was drawn
from the sign languages used in Ireland and Britain. In the British sign language Auslan is
considered as a dialect instead of a particular language.
As in Zachary’s case, he has also gain the capability of communicate with sign
language and spoken language as well. At the age of four, he is able to communicate with the
peer group and his family members also. Generally, sign language varies due to the existence
of different groups in the community. Sign language users mixes their own emotions and
family practice in their way of communication.
Strength
The present mainstream community generated a myth for physical impaired children
that they exhibits mental weakness. However, from the past few decades, deaf education has

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progressed with numerous advanced technology and process. Along with this, there are non-
government organisation to serve the disabled children with proper care as example the
Association of People with Disability (APD) (Aussiedeafkids.org.au, 2019). In the case of
Zachary, he does not exhibit the weak mental health commonly found in deaf community.
At the end of the case study, it is mentioned that Zachary has built the confidence to achieve
anything in life. To assist Zachary in his venture towards language development his parents
also learn about the use if sign language to practice at home.
Limitation
Due to limitation in the hearing the children faces difficulties in their daily lives. In
Zachary’s case, it is observed that he took much time to adopt the sign language. Differing
the way of learning procedure of the mainstream students and the special students is itself an
obstacle for the special children. Apart from this, proper training of the mentors is required to
train the child with special need that also requires huge patience and care. To overcome all
the mentioned difficulties Zachary was helped by his parents and achieved success in
language acquisition that is mentioned at the end of the case study.
Social Interactionist Theory
Overview of the Theory
This theory describes the method of language development stressing the way of
communal interactions. This theory comes under the domain of socio-cultural theory
originated by Lev Vygotsky. According to this theory, communication with the adults of the
society plays a crucial role in a child’s language development. The basic idea of this theory
poses focus on the communication with others as an only way of language acquisition. It
displays the role of the society in developing language skill in a child.
Relevance with Zachary’s Language acquisition

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The present scenario of the case presents Zachary as a kid of five years old. He started
to attend the mainstream school. During this course of time, Zachary gets enough scope to
interact with the society. According to the child psychology, children of Zachary’s age group
learn new things by observing the behaviour of the adults. The term adults include both
Zachary’s parents and other elderly people of the society. This social interactionist theory
involves the features of behaviourist and nativist theory of language development. In
Zachary’s case, his biological parents and the other members of the society played important
role in language acquisition. The more Zachary experience quality communication with
others, the more he achieves mastery over English language. Here, the factor of Zachary’s
ability to access the language including the auditory factor plays a vital role. According to the
study, hearing impaired children possess better access to the aural information in the
atmosphere.
Parental education is also another factor related to this theory. According to the case
study, it has been observed that Zachary’s parents also getting familiar with the process of
Zachary’s language development. The words spoken by the adults, helps the child (Zachary)
to identify the pattern of vocabulary to be used in communal conversation. In the case of
Zachary, along with the cochlear implantation, social interactionist theory plays huge role in
his entire venture of language development.
Application of Social Interactionist theory
Zachary is now five years old and able to communicate with his family members and
friends. As a result of integrated implication of the theory he can communicate fluently.
According to his mother Zachary sometime speaks a lot that requires to be stopped. As a part
of the deaf community, Zachary faced lot of difficulties in language acquisition program.
With the assistance of social interactionist theory, he became a boy with utmost confidence of

9LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
achieving everything in life. He constructs his own belief of gaining anything without any
limit. Rather according to his parent, he denies the existence of any limit in the field of
success. As a rule of the deaf education, Zachary also spent his first few months of infancy
gathering knowledge from others. Deaf children tend to observe sign language used for any
particular word or activity. Along with the new born baby, Zachary’s parents also were new
to the world of deaf community. As a result, his parents also learned to use sign language
along with him. Moreover, the theory of social interaction helped Zachary and his family to
live a hazard free life in the mainstream of the society.
Conclusion
The concluding section can be summed up in the following manner. Zachary is a child
born with hearing impairment. This paper provides mental strength to the parents of deaf
child. The entire paper builds the confidence among the deaf community to think like the
mainstream people. This article demonstrates the language development of Zachary. It also
records the probable procedure for deaf children that includes the Oral-aural intervention
along with the theory of social interaction or communication. Throughout his journey,
Zachary and his parents learned about Australian sign language especially lip-reading.
Zachary has now become a successful individual who can communicate freely with his peer
group and family members.

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