"Deaf villagers use signs to communicate with their hearing relatives, as well as many of their hearing friends and colleagues, and at least 57% of Bengkala’s hearing population can understand and use Kata Kolok with varying degrees of proficiency. All Deaf children in Bengkala receive linguistic input from birth, and thus language acquisition begins at birth. Intergenerational transmission is difficult to measure, the majority of signers are hearing, but on the other hand, Deaf children receive input from birth. However, intermarriage has decreased the number of Deaf children born to signers of Kata Kolok, and there have been no Deaf children born in the village since 2005."

Bengkala can be classified as a non-literate society, as most villagers do not engage in regular literacy activities

"Even though Kata Kolok is still used by hundreds of hearing signers, chances are that the communicative need for the sign language will rapidly disappear when the number of deaf individuals decreases significantly. Since 2005, no deaf children have been born to parents using Kata Kolok."

"Interestingly, in response to this imminent threat, the Deaf Alliance--a team of deaf and hearing villagers who advocate the interests of the deaf villagers and their relatives--have supported the establishment of Kata Kolok-based deaf education. This inclusive education programme takes the form of a deaf unit within one of the village's elementary schools and is currently attended by eight deaf children."