Children across the world acquire their first language(s) naturally, regardless of typology or modality (e.g. sign or spoken). Various attempts have been made to explain the puzzle of language acquisition using several approaches, trying to understand to what extent it can be explained by what children bring to language-learning situations as well…

Language acquisition unfolds within inherently multimodal contexts, where communication is expressed and perceived through diverse channels embedded in social interactions. For hearing children, this involves integrating speech with gesture; for deaf children, language develops through fully visual modalities. Such observations necessitate a…

The ethos behind provision of early intervention programmes to infants and young children with additional support needs has been established for some time (e.g. Right-from-the-Start), but targeting the development of typically developing infants has been a relatively recent phenomenon. Baby sign is one of the many intervention techniques…

Baby sign language is advocated to improve children's communication development. However, the evidence to support the advantages of baby sign has been inconclusive. A systematic review was undertaken to summarize and appraise the research related to the effectiveness of symbolic gestures for typically developing, hearing infants with hearing…