2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference
March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH
3/04/2021 | 3:40 PM - 4:00 PM | Bimodal Bilingualism for an early start to equitable education for deaf children | Topical Breakout
Bimodal Bilingualism for an early start to equitable education for deaf children
To ensure deaf children have an early start to equitable education and are kindergarten ready, a solid language foundation is essential. Steps for a solid language foundation include full and frequent and access to language from the start. Bimodal Bilingualism, having access to two languages in different modalities (visual and spoken), from the start has been shown to have a positive developmental impact where all deaf children, including children with cochlear implants, benefit from learning to sign early alongside with learning English (Clark et al. 2020). For example, when compared to deaf children with cochlear implants raised by hearing parents who do not sign, deaf children with cochlear implants raised by deaf parents who sign exceeded speech and language development scores (Davidson, Lillo-Martin, & Chen Pichler, 2014) and had higher intelligence quotients (Amraei, Amirsalari, & Ajalloueyanm, 2017). More is more when having access to both visual and spoken languages, which increases the chances for full and frequent access to language to meet and exceed age appropriate developmental milestones. To get started, this presentation will help attendees learn about visual communication strategies used by deaf parents that hearing parents can adopt while they are learning to sign together with their deaf child. For example, how do parents communicate when their child does not yet know a particular sign? How do parents gain their child’s attention? How do deaf parents engage in joint attention? This Family ASL presentation will discuss language acquisition, advantages of bimodal bilingualism for all children including children with cochlear implants, and visual communication strategies used by deaf parents with deaf children.
- Discuss language acquisition
- Identify advantages of bimodal bilingualism
- Demonstrate visual communication strategies used by deaf parents
Presentation:
23278_13631ElaineGale.pdf
Handouts:
Handout is not Available
Transcripts:
CART transcripts are NOT YET available, but will be posted shortly after the conference
Presenters/Authors
Elaine Gale
(), Hunter College, CUNY, egale@hunter.cuny.edu;
Elaine Gale is an associate professor and program leader of the deaf and hard of hearing teacher preparation program at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY). She is currently the chair of the Deaf Leadership International Alliance (DLIA), an organization established to advocate deaf adults collaborating with professionals and connecting with young deaf children and their families. Her research experiences include joint attention, theory of mind, and sign language development. At present, she is the Lead Investigator for the Hunter College consortium on a research project titled Family ASL: Bimodal Bilingual Acquisition by Deaf Children of Hearing Parents supported by the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
No relevant financial relationship exist.
Nonfinancial -
No relevant nonfinancial relationship exist.
Deborah Chen Pichler
(), Gallaudet University, deborah.pichler@gallaudet.edu;
Deborah Chen Pichler is Professor of Linguistics at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. Her research focuses on the acquisition of ASL by Deaf children, bimodal bilingual acquisition of ASL and English by Coda children and Deaf children with cochlear implants from Deaf families. She also studies L2 acquisition of ASL by hearing and Deaf adults, particularly hearing parents of deaf and hard of hearing children.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Nonfinancial -
Diane Lillo-Martin
(), University of Connecticut, diane.lillo-martin@uconn.edu;
Diane Lillo-Martin is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at the University of Connecticut, and a Senior Scientist at Haskins Laboratories. Her main research interest is to better understand the human language faculty. Primarily she examines this by studying the structure and acquisition of American Sign Language, and by looking at the process of language acquisition across different languages. See her site for the Sign Linguistics and Language Acquisition lab (http://slla.lab.uconn.edu/) for more information.
ASHA DISCLOSURE:
Financial -
Nonfinancial -