Language use in Spanish-speaking families with deaf children

This study investigated language use in the homes of Hispanic deaf children. Three Spanish-speaking families were studied to provide insights into the complexity of trilingual environments. The children were students at a day school for the deaf in a northeastern U.S. city. Data were gathered through interviews, field notes, participant-observation and videotaping of the deaf child at home.;The following questions were considered: (1) What are the patterns of language choice and language use in Spanish-speaking families with deaf children? (2) What affects the communication process in these families?;The families studied were immigrants, with Spanish as the primary language. Family members--hearing and deaf--were faced with learning two new languages--English and American Sign Language--and two new cultures--American and Deaf. Patterns of language choice and use varied from family to family. Family interactions were affected by the language proficiency of family members--deaf and hearing--in Spanish, English and Sign Language as well as the deaf child's degree of hearing loss.;One family used oral Spanish to communicate with their child and two families used Sign Language. The child with a moderate hearing loss used only oral Spanish at home. One of the profoundly deaf children used American Sign Language (ASL), home signs, foreign signs, and gestures and the other profoundly deaf child used ASL, gestures, and oral Spanish.;In the signing families, hearing members only signed communication directed to the deaf child. In all three families, the deaf children were not accommodated in multiparty conversations, either through the use of visual/gestural language, repetition, or simplified oral language. Despite these limitations, productive communication, much of which was not in ASL or English, was observed.;Schools should attempt to expand on what individual families and their deaf children are already doing to communicate and must recognize the complexity of a trilingual situation. Generalizations should not be made about communication in Hispanic families with deaf children. Failure to acknowledge other forms of language competence may cause schools to view deaf children from linguistically diverse homes as less capable.