Engaged communication between mother and a child in their early developmental stages is one of the predictors of children's development of higher-order thinking skills. For deaf children, this engaged communication between mother and child hinges on the home language environment (HLE) being fully accessible to the child. This research uses…

As the first study addressing family language policy (FLP) in d/Deaf-parented families in China, the current research explores language ideologies, practices and management held by different members within the families. Children of d/Deaf adults (Codas) form an unusual bimodal bilingual group, and the study concerning this group prompts us to…

Children's acquisition of directional verbs in sign languages has received a lot of attention, but less is known about the sociocultural process of using these verbs, especially in the context of emerging sign languages in diverse language ecologies. Directional verbs are a common grammatical phenomenon of many sign languages in which some verbs…

Purpose: Best practices recommend promoting the use of the home language and allowing caregivers to choose the language(s) that they want to use with their child who is deaf or hard of hearing (DHH). We examined whether Spanish-speaking caregivers of children who are DHH receive professional recommendations on oral bilingualism that follow best…

Children, including those who are deaf, become aware of and learn about their environments through playing and social and cultural interactions. For most deaf children, preschool classrooms are optimal spaces for these interactions to occur, but only if they can fully engage with this environment. We discuss the need for and constituent aspects of…

Despite different childhood experiences--primarily differences centered around language access--the authors share stories of growing up in large Spanish-speaking families with a strong sense of cultural identity and values. Now as they raise three children together, this is what they want for them as well--a sense of cultural identity and pride,…

Research interest in heritage speakers and their patterns of bilingual development has grown substantially over the last decade, prompting sign language researchers to consider how the concepts of heritage language and heritage speakers apply in the Deaf community. This overview builds on previous proposals that ASL [American Sign Language] and…

This paper discusses language use and identity patterns in families set up by deaf partners living in Romania, where at least one of the spouses belongs to the ethnic Hungarian minority. Language use and transmission of identity to children in ethnically homogenous (Hungarian) or heterogeneous (Hungarian--Romanian) families of deaf are explored.…

This study examined the extended discourse used by two Deaf parents with their two Deaf children (ages two and four). The study was conducted using an in-depth examination of parental expressive use of American Sign Language, looking at the use of discourse and the features and contexts that offered the most opportunity for rich language…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many children experienced multiple challenges while transitioning from traditional to online schooling. Teachers, administrators, and parents were expected to work together to provide students an optimal educational experience through those turbulent times. This experience generated new insights into how to teach deaf…

Late exposure to the first language, as in the case of deaf children with hearing parents, hinders the production of linguistic expressions, even in adulthood. Less is known about the development of language soon after language exposure and if late exposure hinders all domains of language in children and adults. We compared late signing adults and…

Aim(s): The number of deaf children and young people (CYP) being educated in inclusive mainstream settings rather than special schools has grown over recent years, however, this has not been without its challenges. This qualitative study aims to address a gap in the research literature by investigating what stakeholders consider to be the…

Limited studies exist that connect using signed language with mathematics performance of deaf and hard of hearing children. In the present study, the authors examined 257 participants and compared their results on the Northwest Evaluation Association: Measures of Academic Progress (NWEA MAP) to their results on an assessment of American Sign…

Most FLP research focuses on intrafamily communication (1FLP) and how this is impacted by larger contexts. But what happens when different multilingual families interact intensively on a daily basis? This article analyses language use during a holiday in India in and between four deaf-hearing befriended families, and how this evolved over the…

The authors employed a scoping review to examine peer-reviewed journal articles published 2002-2020 focusing on adolescents who are deaf or hard of hearing and their self-reported identities. d/Deaf identity theory was explored in light of recent advances in developed countries, e.g., universal newborn hearing screening, increased access to…