Challenges and Opportunities With Deaf Multilingual Learners

Abstract

There are an estimated 34 million children worldwide with hearing loss greater than 40dB. As around 90% of children who are Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) are born to parents with typical hearing there are often questions of what language the child who is DHH could and should learn. For the 90% of typically hearing parents who had no prior knowledge of sign language, the idea of having to learn another language to use with their children can be very daunting. Additionally, as the world becomes more bi/multilingual, many children who are DHH may live in a culturally and linguistically diverse community where the home language is not the same language as the community at large; these children are known as DHH Multilingual Learners (DMLs). This can cause additional potential language and cultural learning constraints on immigrant parents who are not yet familiar with their new community's spoken language(s) and culture(s). This results in an increased need for culturally competent professionals to work with DMLs to provide effective interventions.