Conceptualizing Parents' Sign Language Use in Bilingual Early Intervention

Abstract

This research study investigates how parents and interveners conceptualize parents' early sign language use. Three groups of respondents involved in the same bilingual early intervention program were being interviewed: hearing parents (n = 12), hearing teachers (n = 6), and Deaf consultants (n = 6). The search and retrieve program 'The Ethnograph' was used for data analysis. The results demonstrate that neither a framework of linguistic proficiency nor one of communicative competence captures the complexity of the issues involved for parents and interveners in conceptualizing parents' early sign language use. The interpretative frameworks of each group emphasize different aspects of the task facing parents: balancing the quest for Sign Language proficiency with emotional and practical considerations in the family, acknowledging the overriding importance of communication regardless of what one may label the language used, and confirming the visual quality and child appropriateness of the signing. Results are related to the stocks of knowledge on which respondents draw and the implications for Deaf and hearing interveners assessing parents' progress.