Final answer:
Hearing students may have difficulty learning sign language due to linguistic and cultural differences, the need to develop new cognitive skills, and the absence of sound cues.
Step-by-step explanation:
Hearing students may face difficulty when learning sign language due to several factors. One challenge is the linguistic and cultural differences between spoken languages and sign languages. Sign languages, such as American Sign Language (ASL), are visual and rely on gestures, facial expressions, and body movements, while spoken languages focus on auditory and oral communication.
Another difficulty hearing students may encounter is the need to develop new cognitive and perceptual skills to process and understand visual information. Sign languages require the ability to perceive and interpret visual signs rapidly, which can be a new skill for hearing students.
Lastly, hearing students may struggle with the absence of sound cues in sign languages. Sound cues, such as intonation and stress, play an important role in spoken languages for syntactic and semantic purposes. In sign languages, these cues are not present, and hearing students may need to adapt their communication strategies accordingly.