Plenty of scientific work proves that children, and even adults, who learn sign language, gain the benefits not only in the ability to communicate with other sign language users, but also in the wider academic world.

Deaf children who learn sign language at an early age tend to perform better academically. This is partly due to their increased ability to communicate with those around them. However, it is also because sign language is not, as many people mistakenly think, a system of gestures representing words, but a complete and complex language system. Thus, children who learn sign language have already learnt about the way language works, which will help in future studies.

Again, for non-deaf children and adults who learn sign language, the academic advantages spill over into social and cultural ones. Firstly, learning sign language allows the speaker to communicate with a whole new community of people and gain an understanding of how they communicate within their community. Secondly, learning a language gives rise to greater confidence for that person, as he is able to communicate with someone who may struggle to do so. And the skills of language learning can easily be applied to learning other languages but also to other academic pursuits.

There can be no doubt that learning sign language is a useful endeavour for anyone — whether they are deaf themselves and live in a house with other deaf people or whether they are non-deaf and do not know anyone who is. The social, cultural and academic advantages of learning this complex language are diverse and should not be taken lightly. And, especially with children, learning a language which helps people with a disadvantage may encourage them in the future to do more — volunteering and other such work. This means that the non-deaf child can be given a sense of social responsibility at an early age and taught to embrace (接受) all people — not in spite of their differences but because of them.

【小题1】What is sign language according to the author?

A．It is a creative way of expressing ideas.	B．It is a complete complex language system.
C．It is a primary language of disabled people.	D．It is a system of gestures representing words.

【小题2】What does the underlined word “endeavour” in paragraph 4 probably mean?

A．Attempt.

B．Experiment.

C．Incident.

D．Feedback.

【小题3】What quality can a non-deaf child who learns sign language acquire?

A．Being competitive.	B．Being courageous.
C．Being responsible.	D．Being positive.

【小题4】What conclusion can we draw from the text?

A．Learning sign language brings people an advantage of finding a future job.

B．The numerous advantages of learning sign language should be taken seriously.

C．Non-deaf children should learn sign language due to the differences of the deaf people .

D．It’s unnecessary for non-deaf person who doesn’t know any deaf people to learn sign language.