 addressed the issues of accessibility during formal instruction, but the access issue continues beyond the formal instruction. Accessing incidental learning opportunities can boost literacy and vocabulary development. Access to incidental learning fosters an individual’s fund of knowledge, starting at home and continues within the community. Ultimately, incidental learning is a lifelong, social, and academic phenomenon. Historically, we have placed the problems associated with incidental learning on deaf* children when the issue is actually a societal attitude. Instead of focusing on what deaf* individuals cannot do or have limited access to, a better solution may be to conceptualize how we all can make the environment accessible for them.
What we don’t know
There is still a need to research and document incidental learning opportunities for deaf* individuals of hearing parents and deaf* students living in areas without access to Deaf language models and community. Furthermore, there is a need to investigate the impact of Deaf space or ASL-immersion schools or programs on incidental learning opportunities. Can technology interventions provide equal access to incidental learning opportunities? What kind of impact can support service providers (SSPs) provide for incidental learning opportunities outside classroom instruction? Lastly, dialogues should be encouraged to examine the relationships between language deprivation and incidental learning opportunities.
Accessing incidental learning involves an accumulation of knowledge. This inconclusive list of awareness or skills are enhanced when incidental learning opportunities are accessible.
- Finance Management
- College/Career Planning
- Health Literacy
- Local/Global Issues
- Problem Solving
- Social Maturity
The more full or immediate access there is to incidental information, the more options are available to participate. Moreover, the participation would include assuming various roles in conversations rather than being limited to the bystanding role (see diagram). Such access provides opportunities for connectedness and knowledge reconstruction. Accessing incidental learning opportunities influences how one perceives her/his sense of community membership, where s/he can be more inquisitive and contributing or sharing ideas and talents.
Parents, teachers, SSPs, and administrators should engage in discussions, during Individual Education Program (IEP) meetings, and request that accessible incidental learning opportunities should be created beyond classroom instruction. Such decisions cannot be based on staff availability, funding, or convenience. Considerations should include hiring qualified Deaf and hard-of-hearing personnel and promoting environments that would encourage a critical mass of deaf* students, where there are more opportunities for members to share a common, intelligible, and accessible language. A strategy might be an implementation of a center program where deaf* students from neighboring districts converge.
* deaf is used here to refer to all deaf and hard of hearing people regardless of hearing abilities or language preferences
Posted on Oct. 4, 2019 by
Mindy J. Hopper
National Technical Institute for the Deaf
Editor’s note: This post was originally published Oct. 4, 2019, and was updated for language and clarity on Nov. 15, 2019.