Late Acquisition of Sign Language: What Consequences for Deaf Children?

Due to genetic, social and institutional factors, only a small number of deaf children have access to sign language from birth under natural conditions. Many deaf people, although they do not hear, are raised exclusively in the country's spoken language, they acquire sign language later, sometimes in adolescence or adulthood. This paper looks at the issues involved in late acquisition of sign language. It shows that deprivation of sign language can have significant linguistic and cognitive consequences for deaf children, but that they are also capable of great linguistic resilience. We will present the TELSF2 test, which assesses a child's level of French sign language and thus enables learning to be remediated.