I see the difference. I thought that this thread was dicussing aquisition of the English language and therefore, wasn't considering ASL (because ASL is a different language).
I agree that the whole word is the symbol but when a hearing child is learning a language, they start with the morphemes and phonemes. It only when they begin to string those sounds together are they able to put the sounds to the concept. As long as the deafness is because of something in the ear and not something in the brain, the learning pattern should be the same. So breaking the word into the different sounds visually would give the same effect would it not?
Oh and I have taken adavanced classes. Including learning, child development, and cognition.
