Introduction
Hearing children learn language & social skills through passive means
Hearing-impaired children often exhibit delays in language and social skills
Notes:
Hearing children begin to learn language skills through passive means even before they learn how to speak, by overhearing the spoken words of their parents, siblings and from television and radio.
Most children learn to understand the meaning of what is being said even before they comprehend all of the words, by hearing the rise and fall of voice inflections and differences in vocal tones.
Hearing children also learn appropriate social interaction skills by observing and listening to how people communicate with each other in different situations.
Deaf and hearing-impaired children cannot be passive learners as they cannot pick-up signals from verbal cues and environmental sounds.
Due to their loss of hearing, deaf and hearing-impaired children often exhibit delays in language development, in pragmatic skills such as requesting information and making requests and in social interaction skills.