There are still similarities between Spanish and English that you would be able to pick up on and at least paritally understand. The syntax isn't completly different. But that's beside the point.
I agree that the whole word is the symbol but when a hearing child is learning a language but, they start with the morphemes and phonemes. These basic sounds produced by babies are produced whether the baby is deaf or hearing. It's 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. The child would begin to string the visual "sounds" together to create the concept just like a hearing child would. So breaking the word into the different sounds visually would give the same effect would it not? And if not why not?
As far as a child having to have the peripheral exposure...most deaf children have hearing parents. In saying that ASL gives this extra exposure it would also mean that these hearing parents would have to learn a new language and along with it syntax (from what I remember about ASL the syntax is completely different from English). So this child will be getting this periphreal exposure only when it's hearing parents sign. It highly unlikely that English speaking parent's will suddenly switch to ASL as their primary mode of communication with each other and others. Thus, the children still wouldn't be getting this periphreal exposure with ASL either. It would make alot more sense I would think, from a hearing parent's perspective to communicate with their child in the language that they would normally communicate with and have the greatest fluency in- English.
