When caregivers decide to use Auslan within a Bilingual-Bicultural (Bi-Bi) approach with their children who use cochlear implants (CI/s), the feasibility aspect is more easily addressed for caregivers who are deaf or hard of hearing who are, themselves, fluent in Auslan. Some caregivers who have hearing within the typical range who may have no…

With regard to parents making communication approach decisions for their children with hearing loss, Crowe et al. (2014) suggested that key themes were: feasibility; sources of information; child characteristics; and, future opportunities. For children using cochlear implants (CI/s), the present study aimed to understand parental preferences…

To explore the factors influencing parents' choice of communication mode during early education of their child with hearing loss. Qualitative descriptive analysis of semi-structured interviews with parents of children with hearing loss. Fourteen parents of children who participated in the Longitudinal Outcomes of Children with Hearing Impairment…

During the pre- and post-implant habilitation process, mothers of children using cochlear implants may be coached by clinicians to use appropriate communicative strategies during play according to the family's choice of communication approach. The present study compared observations made by experienced and inexperienced individuals in the analysis…

In this article we describe an Australian project in which linguists, signed language interpreters, medical and health care professionals, and members of the Deaf community use the technology of the Internet to facilitate cooperative language development. A web-based, interactive multimedia lexicon, an encyclopedic dictionary, and a database of…

From the evidence Johnston has presented, it is clear that the number of children being born deaf in Australia has fallen off and that this decline is likely to continue as a result of the technological and social factors he outlines. It also seems that this reduction in numbers is reflected in other countries for which data are available. It is…

In my response to the commentaries made about my article, I observe that the commentators find no obvious errors with my estimates of the size of the signing deaf community. However, most of them are not as pessimistic as I am partly because of the position they take on a number of issues. Namely, the supposed uniqueness of Australia in its…

Responding to Johnston's projections for the future of Australian Sign Language (Auslan), I analyzed school enrollments in American educational programs and found similar trends. There are fewer deaf and hard of hearing children in school now than twenty years ago, with the largest decline, approximately 50 percent, among children with profound…

According to enrollments in schools for the deaf and data from the national census and neonatal hearing screening programs, the incidence of severe and profound childhood deafness in Australia is, and has been, less than commonly assumed. Factors implicated include improved medical care, mainstreaming, cochlear implants, and genetic science. Data…