This longitudinal case study examined the language and literacy acquisition of a Deaf child as mediated by her signing Deaf parents during her first three years of life. Results indicate that the parents’ interactions with their child were guided by linguistic and cultural knowledge that produced an intuitive use of child-directed signing (CDSi) in American Sign Language (ASL) and that the child developed in ways similar to her hearing, speaking counterparts. Parental attention to eye gaze and eye contact, especially prior to the advent of the first sign, are described, as are the ways they mediated their child’s transference of knowledge about their visual language, ASL, to printed English. These findings demonstrate that when deaf children are immersed in a visually accessible natural language environment from birth, they can participate in the kinds of mediated interaction that provide the linguistic resources and the cognitive mapping necessary for increasingly complex development. Implications for the development of deaf children are addressed in light of continuing reports of underachievement in this population, whose members are typically deprived of the linguistic and cognitive resources afforded by early immersion in a natural signed language.

A qualitative study was conducted to examine principles and instructional strategies for teaching English literacy through ASL and for teaching ASL as a language art. The study site was an ASL/English bilingual charter school for deaf children where a majority of teachers are deaf and all are fluent in ASL and English. The author describes and interprets six principles for teaching English literacy through ASL as well as the instructional strategies that support these principles. The study suggests that �integrative ASL/English language arts,� in which attending and signing explicitly support reading and writing development, is conducive to English literacy development.

In this study, the authors examine the content of reflective journals written by six Deaf pre-service teachers during their student teaching in classrooms with hearing students. In doing so, the authors analyze and compare the journal entries to the established literature on student teaching. Results indicate that these student teachers focused on many of the same issues mentioned in the literature on reflective teaching with hearing student teachers—pedagogy, teaching strategies, and relationships with students—and these student teachers often did so by incorporating key elements of Deaf culture into these categories. Unlike most student teachers, this cohort placed a primary emphasis on pedagogy—but with a special visual consideration—and a secondary emphasis on classroom management. They also focused on their ability to think independently from their cooperating teachers. Implications for sociocultural perspectives in teacher education programs are discussed.

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