Abstract
This chapter presents Hornberger's *continua of biliteracy as a comprehensive and wholistic examination of diverse deaf and hard-of-hearing students' multilingual and multicultural abilities. The continua consist of four domains—development, content, media, and contexts—through which biliteracy is acquired. The continua are described then applied to three diverse immigrant DHH students and their families who are from Cambodia, Vietnam, and Chile. This results in unique insights into the students' current skill development and future needs including attainment of a positive dual minority identity and optimal academic skills. The final section utilizes the continua with a miscue analysis of an African American eighth grader. Miscue analysis provided a naturalistic, language-neutral means of assessing reading skills and identified a number of strengths not previously observed. This combination of tools more thoroughly examines the positive and negative influences on diverse DHH students with sensitive and insightful approaches for optimizing their educational experiences.
TopEducational And Biliteracy Challenges
Children with hearing losses, whether or not they are U.S. citizens, immigrants, white, or BIPOC, typically face barriers in acquiring language and using it to learn about their world. This is because most of their parents (85-95%) have normal hearing and are unaware of the substantial barriers posed by hearing loss (Gallaudet Research Institute, 2013; Mitchell & Karchmer, 2004). It is through family interactions and hearing the languages of their environments that most children become fluent communicators. Hearing loss alters or prevents a child’s access to the language(s) they would otherwise learn easily. Their brain is receptive and acts upon what it receives, but it cannot accumulate unclear auditory information into a complete and functioning linguistic system (Luft, 2017).
Importantly, the foundations of language are acquired within the first three years of life: By this age, most children are able to carry on sophisticated conversations (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010). Families are therefore, placed in the role of de facto language development interventionists for their young children. Yet, hearing loss frequently requires that they modify their interactions in order to make them available to their DHH child. This is why state early intervention services are provided to families so that they receive the support and assistance needed to create an optimal environment for their child’s development (Bowen, 2016).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Successive: Refers to the acquisition of more than one spoken or signed language, which occurs in a sequence, with one language acquired before beginning the acquisition of additional languages. This may occur through exposure in an individual’s home environment in which one language is dominant and other languages are acquired later. This also occurs when young children learn one language at home and other languages in day care, preschool, or school.
Contextualized: Refers to assessment topics or materials that provide sufficient background information in order to activate a person’s existing understandings and prior experiences to assist in comprehension.
Expression: Skills in using language (signed, spoken, or written) to communicate or “express” one’s thoughts, feelings, opinions, and perspectives.
Reception: Skills in understanding language (signed, spoken, or written) that others are using to communicate or “express” their thoughts, feelings, opinions, and perspectives.
Decontextualized: Refers to assessment topics or materials that are devoid of background information or associations that may activate a person’s existing understandings and prior experiences. This is often done to focus only on targeted skills, such as abilities to decode words or identify key elements of sentences in isolation from related cognitive skills.
Vernacular: The conversational and daily/home language(s) used by an individual.
Divergent: Refers to spoken/signed or written languages that share very few, if any, structures or features, often due to a very dissimilar or different linguistic heritage.
Oral: Spoken language.
Simultaneous: Refers to the acquisition of more than one spoken or signed language, which occurs approximately at the same time, through exposure from the individual’s environment to these languages. This frequently occurs in multilingual homes and communities.
Convergent: Refers to spoken/signed or written languages that share structures or features, often due to a shared linguistic heritage.