Editoral Team
ASL Translations
Childhood Language Acquisition
Family Language Policy in American Sign Language and English Bilingual Families
Signer: Dr. Bobbie Jo Kite
This study was a qualitative analysis of interviews focused on eight hearing families with deaf children aged 0-5 years old which revealed the families' beliefs, language ideologies and attitudes about language development in ASL and English. Most families cited being a bilingual family as the guiding force for their family language policy (FLP). The families also proudly framed their child as a bilingual individual. It was very important to the families that their Deaf children were happy and felt whole. The findings also indicated that the families were intentional in their use of ASL as the primary language, and English as the second language in the areas of reading, writing and speaking.
​Following the child's lead in formulating their family language ideology played a critical part of their Family Language Policy. The families also relied heavily on resources and felt most successful when paired with a Deaf role model or Deaf mentor. All families enrolled in ASL classes to improve their ASL skills so that they could be language models for their Deaf children. There were some challenges with implementing bilingual development of ASL and English in their FLP, particularly receiving ASL services and working with medical professionals. Many families relocated to access better educational opportunities that aligned with their beliefs.
The findings indicate that the connection to the Deaf community and Deaf individuals through the Deaf Mentors Project is a key to providing families with support to resist various forms of oppression from the medical community. The process of the early linguistic acquisition of ASL-English bimodal-bilingual development and its contribution to young Deaf children's linguistic outcomes as a foundation for future academic engagement and lifelong success is supported through family language policy.
Kite, B. J. (2017). Family language policy in American Sign Language and English bilingual families (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest. (10683198).