This article puts forward a solution to the impending shortage of culturally and linguistically competent interpreters: the education of heritage signers as heritage language learners. It examines the current landscape of American Sign Language (ASL) as a course of study and the difficulties heritage signers report when they begin learning ASL. In…

This paper responds to "Jamaican Deaf Children Interacting with Written Language: Support for Bilingual Instruction?" (Winnifred Hall), that stressed the importance of cultural factors in the education of students with deafness. Difficulties in implementing bilingual programs, alternative bilingual/bicultural models, and the need for…

The author of "Jamaican Deaf Children Interacting with Written Language: Support for Bilingual Instruction?," responds to criticism that the difficulties of implementing a bilingual program were underestimated and the relevance of early intervention in learning English was not sufficiently recognized. Support for early intervention is…

This digest presents information on bilingual-bicultural education for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. The premise of bilingual-bicultural education is that all children who are deaf or hard of hearing should develop communicative competency and that they need to be bilingual in order to function successfully in the family, school, and…

A survey of 71 day and residential schools found 19 identified themselves as bilingual-bicultural (BiBi) programs. Of the 19 programs, 37% reported use of manually coded English. Fluency in American Sign Language of instructional and support staff varied, with 47% reporting no more than half of instructional staff were fluent. (Contains…

A review of literature focuses on the literacy acquisition process of deaf children who acquire American Sign Language (ASL) as a first language and written English as a second language. Literacy in this context is defined broadly to include the context and culture in which reading and writing occur, referring to the strong connection between…