Since the late 1990s, the majority of D/deaf students enter schooling in a mainstream setting. Little has been written about their experiences and how a change in school settings impacts their learning and social identity. In this study, semi-structured interviews have been conducted with nine students, and the results show that their time in a mainstream school setting has led them to construct a marginal or negative social identity, but after transitioning to a Deaf school, the social identity has shifted towards a positive one. According to students, this is due to feelings of belonging as equal members of the social group where they are given the opportunity to develop language skills that allow them to communicate without restrictions. The students also report improvement in academic achievements as a result of the sign bilingual school setting. Parents and D/deaf students need to experience the different language settings to make an informed decision.
Most deaf children are born to hearing families. During the last twenty years deaf children, in increasing numbers and at an early age, get cochlear implant (CI), a high-technologic hearing aid device. The aim of this qualitative, longitudinal, single-case study was to explore and describe critical changes in naturalistic, video-observed interactions between deaf family members.
In this study a deaf girl, Diana, from birth acquired Swedish Sign Language and received at the age of 35 months a unilateral cochlear implant (CI). Diana eventually developed spoken Swedish as a second language in vocal-aural modality. The study is triangulated with information from the CI-team records spanning the ages 31 months to 8 years. The latter age relates to the time when Diana’s receptive skill of vocal mode was assessed to be 7 years and 11 months. Mediating parameters include the parents’ positive attitude towards meaning-making interactions and encouragement of the child’s own bimodal activity. Diana’s hearing twin brother’s challenging her vocal modality and Diana’s bimodal production seemed to self-scaffold her second language acquisition. Further, her bimodality also scaffolded her family to perceive thus understand her utterances; in addition the other participants’ bimodal interchanges scaffolded her perception. The continued education in sign language seemed to be an asset as Diana could continue her social and intellectual development at the same time as she was acquiring a second language. Reported aspects of mediated actions might also influence a broader field of special needs.
This article focuses on the similar approaches to, yet different contexts of legal recognition of sign languages in Sweden and Norway. We use examples from sign language documentation (both scientific and popular), legislation that mentions sign language, organization of implementation of sign language acquisition, and public discourse (as expressed by deaf associations’ periodicals from the 1970s until today), to discuss the status and ideologies of sign language, and how these have affected deaf education. The legal documents indicate that Norway has a stronger and more wide-reaching legislation, especially sign language acquisition rights, but the formal legal recognition of a sign language is not necessarily reflected in how people discuss the status of the sign language. Our analysis reveals that the countries’ sign languages have been subject to language shaming, defined as the enactment of linguistic subordination. The language shaming has not only been enacted by external actors, but has also come from within deaf communities. Our material indicates that language shaming has been more evident in the Norwegian Deaf community, while the Swedish Deaf community has been more active in using a “story of legislation” in the imagination and rhetoric about the Swedish deaf community and bilingual education. The similarities in legislation, but differences in deaf education, popular discourse and representation of the sign languages, reveal that looking at the level and scope of legal recognition of sign language in a country, only partially reflects the acceptance and status of sign language in general.
Although once placed solely in deaf schools, a growing number of deaf students in Sweden are now enrolling in mainstream schools. In order to maintain a functional educational environment for these students, municipalities are required to provide a variety of supporting resources, e.g. technological equipment and specialized personnel. However, the functions of these resources and how these relate to deaf students’ learning is currently unknown. Thus, the present study examines public school resources, including the function of a profession called a hörselpedagog (HP, a kind of pedagogue that is responsible for hard-of-hearing students). In particular, the HPs’ perspectives on the functioning and learning of deaf students in public schools were examined. Data were collected via (i) two questionnaires: one quantitative (n = 290) and one qualitative (n = 26), and (ii) in-depth interviews (n = 9). These show that the resources provided to deaf children and their efficacy are highly varied across the country, which holds implications for the language situations and learning of deaf students.