Abstract Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children who experience language deprivation face heightened risk for long-term cognitive, social, and emotional harm. These outcomes are not due to parental unpreparedness but arise from entrenched social biases and professional practices that that frame deafness itself as a problem to be corrected rather than prioritizing early access to a fully accessible natural language. A natural signed language, American Sign Language (ASL), a visual language with its own grammar and syntax, provides full linguistic access for DHH children and supports healthy development across domains. This paper calls on deaf-aware social workers to challenge outdated models, advocate alongside families, and collaborate with medical professionals and policymakers to ensure culturally appropriate, rights-based interventions. Centering full language access from infancy is essential to preventing language deprivation and safeguarding the developmental, relational, and human rights of DHH children.
Sculley et al. (Tue,) studied this question.