Language experience matters for the emergence of early numerical concepts.

Research has shown a link between the acquisition of numerical concepts and language, but exactly how linguistic input matters for numerical development remains unclear. Here, we examine both symbolic (number word knowledge) and non-symbolic (numerical discrimination) numerical abilities in a population in which access to language is limited early in development-oral deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) preschoolers born to hearing parents who do not know a sign language. The oral DHH children demonstrated lower numerical discrimination skills, verbal number knowledge, conceptual understanding of the word "more", and vocabulary relative to their hearing peers.

Math abilities in deaf and hard of hearing children: The role of language in developing number concepts.

Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children who are not exposed to fluent sign language from birth generally fall behind their hearing peers in mathematics. These disparities are pervasive and emerge as young as 3 years old and continue throughout adulthood. While these limitations have been well-documented, there has been little attempt to empirically explain why one consequence of deafness seems to reflect difficulties with numbers and mathematics.