Family ASL: Bimodal bilingual acquisition by deaf children of hearing parents

This five-year project tracks development of both American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken English by young deaf children whose hearing parents are learning ASL as a second language.

The study documents parents’ process of ASL learning and investigates the extent to which early but non-native ASL input, alongside a bimodal bilingual approach in school-based programs, supports linguistic and cognitive development for deaf children growing up in the most prevalent context, within hearing families.