Exposure [to language] isn't enough for deaf kids

You’ve probably heard this before:

“Don’t worry, language will come.”
As long as your child is exposed to language, they’ll pick it up.

And while that might be true for many hearing kids—
it’s not the case for our deaf kids.

Here’s why.

For most kids, language develops through something called incidental learning.

They overhear conversations.
They pick up tone and vocabulary from cartoons.
They notice the way adults talk to each other at the dinner table.

Language is everywhere. And they’re constantly soaking it in.

But for deaf and hard-of-hearing kids, especially in the early years?
That kind of access is often limited—or missing altogether.

And here’s the kicker:
No one’s tracking how much language is actually getting in.
Everyone’s just assuming it’s happening.

This matters because language isn’t just about words.
It’s the foundation for something deeper:
 

Theory of Mind.

The ability to understand that other people have thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that might be different from your own.

It helps kids:

🧠 Predict behaviour
🧠 Show empathy
🧠 Understand stories
🧠 Build meaningful relationships

But if a child misses out on the everyday back-and-forth—
the questions, the jokes, the overheard family drama at dinner—
they miss more than just vocabulary.

They miss the social glue that language provides.
And that gap doesn’t always show up right away.

In preschool, they might seem fine.
Quiet. Easy-going. Not disruptive.

But then school starts.
The learning becomes more abstract.
Social dynamics get more complex.
Assumptions about what they should know pile up fast.

And suddenly… the gap becomes obvious.
Only now, it’s harder to close.

So no—language doesn’t “just come” for our kids.

Not if no one’s checking whether they have full access.
Not if no one’s making sure their primary language—whether it’s spoken, signed, or both—is being modelled consistently.

What our kids need isn’t just exposure.

• They need connection.
• They need intentional, rich, interactive language input—every single day.
• And they need it early.

If we wait until the gaps show up,
we’ve already waited too long.

• We can’t afford to cross our fingers and hope for the best.
• We need to track. We need to support.
• We need to build language access like their future depends on it—because it does.

If you’re not sure what your child is actually accessing—or how to check—
start here 👇
📥 Link to bilingual input tracker

You don’t need to wait until school to find out.
You deserve to know now.