Children's ability to share attention with another social partner (joint attention) plays an important role in language development. However, our understanding of the role of joint attention comes mainly from children learning spoken languages, which gives a very narrow, speech-centric impression of the role of joint attention. This study broadens…

In this study, 19 college-educated deaf adults with experience using interpreters in educational settings provided insights into how successfully various elements of classroom discourse were preserved through interpretation. The deaf adults, fluent in American Sign Language (ASL) and experienced at using interpreters, watched educational…

Variation occurs in sign languages, just as in spoken languages. Lexical variation is very common and has been related to individual schools for the deaf, so-called "schoolization," rather than only to region or other common sociolinguistic factors, such as gender, social class, etc. (Baker et al. 2016). This study investigates lexical…

While deaf children learning American Sign Language (ASL) from deaf caregivers generally develop along typical trajectories, some have been skeptical that deaf children who have hearing caregivers--the majority of deaf children--can similarly benefit from ASL exposure. This study tracked ASL fluency and academic achievement among a large sample of…

Numbers and letters are culturally created symbols that acquire meaning through extensive training, significantly influencing brain function. The distinct hemispheric specialization of cortical regions for these categories has been hypothesized to relate to the co-activated brain networks: the left language regions for letters, and the right…

Purpose: The aim of the study was to describe the expressive sign vocabularies of a group of children learning Australian Sign Language (Auslan). Method: The spontaneous signs of 44 children aged 3.0-6.8 years enrolled in one early-years bilingual-bicultural educational program were documented using a new approach, the Handshape Analysis Recording…

This article, grounded in sociolinguistics, examines the identity building, language transmission and educational strategies of immigrant d/Deaf multilingual learners (IDML). The scientific literature mainly focuses on a single pair of languages -- the national spoken language and the national signed one. For example, Deaf Studies traditionally…

This article investigates the narrative skills of children acquiring Finnish Sign Language (FinSL). Producing a narrative requires vocabulary, the ability to form sentences, and cognitive skills to construct actions in a logical order for the recipient to understand the story. Research has shown that narrative skills are an excellent way of…

This paper discusses disadvantaging situations that deaf students encounter in higher education in Sweden. We report two recent cases of deaf students' academic welfare being put at risk. We foreground in these cases the 'odd situations' that arise when provisions that fail to access the particular nature of deaf experience also fail to secure…

This study aimed to explore the literacy interactions of deaf and hearing parents with their preschool children in Saudi Arabia. The participants were three sets of parents (six individuals) of preschoolers. Data were collected through home literacy observation, experience sampling method, and interviews. All participants endorsed learning through…

Upon arrival in Sweden, adult migrants are required to learn Swedish at the earliest opportunity. This requirement also extends to deaf migrants, regardless of their linguistic and educational backgrounds. This paper presents findings and experiences derived from a project focused on the multilingual situation of deaf migrants in Sweden. Some deaf…

Language assessment is a central aspect not only of language education in the general population, but also amongst heterogeneous, low-incidence populations. One such population are immigrant deaf and hard-of-hearing learners (IDML) who are bimodal-multilingual and whose languages development often includes the spoken, written, and/or signed…

Many students in STEM experience decreased performance due to anxiety, namely math and science anxiety. However, spatial skills are correlated with better STEM outcomes. Our research addressed a previous gap in the literature, investigating if STEM anxiety or spatial experiences have a stronger relationship with STEM outcomes. In this online…

Around the globe, beginner sign language programs have seen surging enrolments in recent years. Yet relatively few learners progress to higher-level sign language study. In this article, we explore factors shaping retention and attrition among a cohort of 70 beginner Australian Sign Language (Auslan) students studying in a vocational education…

Name sign systems have been described in many deaf communities around the world. The most frequent name sign types are associated with an individual's appearance, for example, a signers' hairstyle, clothes, and physical features such as height, weight, etc. However, a recent study that examined name signs in Swedish Sign Language, for example,…