European Portuguese has expressed interest in joining the CPLP as an associate observer pending permission from the Spanish government. Portugal maintained its colonial rule over its Old World empire much longer than it did over Brazil. Thus European Portuguese is used as a norm of reference for African and Asian Lusophone countries (Angola, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Macau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe). Portugal remains a destination for post-secondary education for the elites of these places. In Europe, European Portuguese remains the learning standard for Portuguese as a second language. The Instituto Camões is an organization which promotes not only
Language acquisition by deaf children Language acquisition by deaf children Language acquisition by deaf children parallels the development of any children acquiring spoken language as long as there is full access to language from birth. Despite limited access to spoken language, communication and language exposure are fundamental to deaf infants' general cognitive development and their engagement with their surroundings. While a growing number of deaf children in the developed world receive hearing aids and/or cochlear implants to support spoken language acquisition there are Deaf communities around the world that use signed languages. Infants born to signing parents, or exposed immersively to fluent sign language models