A longitudinal study of deaf and hearing mothers' use of visual-tactile attention strategies with deaf and hearing children

Deaf children are strongly dependent upon the visual modality to receive communications from a social partner and additionally, they depend on this modality to observe and explore their environment. However, it is frequently reported that deaf children of hearing parents are delayed in their ability to divide their attention between an activity and their parent (Gregory & Barlow, 1986). Researchers have hypothesized that deaf parents may actively train their children to coordinate their attention between an activity and a social partner. The goal of the current study was to systematically describe and compare the strategies that deaf and hearing mothers use with their deaf or hearing children between the ages of 9 and 18 months to attract their attention and to help them learn to divide their visual attention between an object and the mother. This study proposed that (1) consistent with Vygotsky's model of developmental progression, the attention-related strategies mothers selected would transition from primarily adult initiated to increasingly child regulated and (2) the use of attention-related strategies would be mediated by group hearing status. Videotapes of mothers and children engaged in free play were coded for attention-accommodating and attention-directing strategies at three age points. The results of this study demonstrated that deaf mothers' use of attention-related strategies with their deaf and hearing children changed in a manner consistent with Vygotsky's theory of progressive development. Hearing mothers did not exhibit the same organization of developmentally progressive strategy use with their deaf children. Initially, deaf mothers with hearing children (D/h) exhibited a pattern in their use of attention-related strategies similar to hearing mothers with deaf children (H/d); however, by 18 months D/h mothers' use of attention-related strategies had begun to show a developmental pattern of use similar to deaf mothers of deaf children (D/d). The purpose of a related study, Study II, was to provide preliminary investigation regarding deaf children's typical course of responsiveness to their deaf mothers' use of attention-directing strategies so that this information could be integrated into early intervention programs. Study II demonstrated that fewer than half of mothers' initial attempts to obtain their children's attention at 9 months were successful; however, the children's level of responsiveness increased significantly by 18 months. While persistently making one or two attempts to obtain the children's attention appeared to facilitate the development of attentional skills, making three or more attempts when initial attempts were not successful appeared to hamper the transition from mother-regulated to child-regulated interactions.