Bilingual education for deaf children in Sweden

Svartholm, Kristina

doi:10.1080/13670050903474077

Cited by 89 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…This is due to restricted input of sign language and the degraded quality of the speech signal (Campbell, MacSweeney, & Woll, 2014;Lederberg et al, 2013). In Sweden, many DHH children use both sign language and spoken language, although they typically prefer one of these languages for communicative and learning situations (Svartholm, 2010). In line with the bilingual curriculum, DHH children who attend Regional Special Needs Schools (RSNS) in Sweden are taught in Swedish Sign Language (SSL) and in spoken and/or written Swedish (The National Agency for Special Needs Education and Schools, 2016).…”

Section: Cognitive Hearing Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the present project, participants were recruited from these schools to ensure that SSL was used for communication and learning. However, it should be noted that there are DHH children in mainstream education who also use SSL (Holmström, 2013;Svartholm, 2010). Of all DHH school aged children in Sweden today, only a small minority, today represented by 368 pupils (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2016), attend RSNS.…”

Section: Regional Special Needs Schoolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Today, there are five RSNS in Sweden. These schools provide a learning environment that involves both SSL and written and/or spoken Swedish (Svartholm, 2010). For the present project, participants were recruited from these schools to ensure that SSL was used for communication and learning.…”

Section: Regional Special Needs Schoolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Signs for Developing Reading : Sign Language and Reading Development in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children

Holmer¹

2016

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Reading development is supported by strong language skills, not least in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children. Regional Special Needs Schools (RSNS) in Sweden have a bilingual curriculum, that is, DHH pupils at these schools learn Swedish Sign Language and written and/or spoken Swedish. The work in the present thesis investigates reading development in DHH children who attend these schools and who are learning to read. The primary aim of the present work was to investigate whether the reading skills of DHH signing children can be improved via computerized sign language based literacy training aimed at strengthening the connections between sign language and written language. Another aim was to investigate concurrent and longitudinal associations between skills in reading, sign language, and cognition in this population. The results indicate that sign language skills support developing reading skills in RSNS pupils (Paper I and Paper IV). In particular, sign language based literacy training appears to support development of word reading (Paper IV). In addition, awareness of the sublexical structure of sign language seems to assist word reading (Paper I). Interestingly, the ability to imitate manual gestures was related to reading skills. More specifically, precision of imitation of unfamiliar signs was associated with development of word reading (Paper IV) and precision of imitation of familiar signs, i.e., vocabulary, seemed to be associated with developing reading comprehension (Paper IV). Results also suggest that working memory and Theory of Mind (ToM) are related to reading comprehension in RSNS pupils (Paper III). In addition to these findings relating to reading development, results also suggest that sign language experience enhance the establishment of representations of manual gestures (Paper II), and that progression in ToM seem to be typical, although delayed, in RSNS pupils who are learning to read (Paper III). Taken together, the associations revealed between sign language skills and reading development support the notion that sign language skills may provide a foundation for promotion of reading skills in DHH signing children. Thus, interventions that support development of sign-based representations and their manipulation and use in written language processing, may improve reading skills in this population. To account for the present findings, a model of written language processing is proposed. Working memory has a central role in integrating environmental stimuli and language-mediated representations, and thereby provides a platform for cross-modal language processing and multimodal language development. SammanfattningEn god språklig förmåga bidrar till god läsutveckling, inte minst hos döva och hörselskadade barn. Specialpedagogiska skolmyndighetens specialskolor för döva och hörselskadade (D/H) barn har en tvåspråkig läroplan som innebär att elever på dessa skolor lär sig både svenskt teckenspråk och skriven och/eller talad svenska. De fyra arbeten som ingår i avhandlingen undersöker l...

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Section: Cognitive Hearing Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Regional Special Needs Schoolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Signs for Developing Reading : Sign Language and Reading Development in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children

Holmer¹

2016

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“…The programme affords the greatest potential for minimising the language delay and literacy problems of deaf students (Svartholm 2010). As Svartholm (2010) argues, schooling should be about respect for deaf children's instinctive and spontaneous use of selfexpression and their own ways of knowing and understanding the world. By responding in this way, schools could potentially become more receptive to the language needs of deaf children.…”

Section: Reflections and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a study on sign bilingualism, involving the use of two languages, one of which is a signed language and the other a written/spoken language, researchers reported that teaching through signed languages was instrumental in the educational success of deaf children in Sweden and the UK (Swanwick and Gregory 2007;Svartholm 2010). The move towards sign-bilingual education in these countries emerged as a consequence of the failure of oralism and concerns about lack of appropriate resources in mainstream schools (Swanwick and Gregory 2007).…”

Section: Sign-bilingual Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Behind the teacher's back’: an ethnographic study of deaf people's schooling experiences in the Republic of Ireland

O’Connell

Deegan

2014

Irish Educational Studies

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Historically, the valuing of deaf children's voices on their own schooling has been underrepresented in educational policies, curriculum frameworks and discursive practices and, in particular, in the debates and controversies surrounding oralism and Irish Sign Language in deaf education in Ireland. This article discusses children's everyday lived experiences of oralism and Irish Sign Language using ethnographic interviews and observational methods. The data yielded narrative understandings of how deaf children's schooling experiences served as a cauldron for the development of time, space and relational domains for individual and collective self-expression, cultural production and reproduction of the secret lore and understandings of Irish Sign Language and development of a hidden curriculum of sign language in a policy and practice context dominated by oralism. This paper concludes with recommendations for the development of a sign bilingual curriculum across the full scope and sequence of schooling in Ireland.

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Science in Silence: How Educators of the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Teach Science

Raven

Whitman

2019

Res Sci Educ

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Bilingual education for deaf children in Sweden

Cited by 89 publications

References 3 publications

Signs for Developing Reading : Sign Language and Reading Development in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children

Signs for Developing Reading : Sign Language and Reading Development in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children

‘Behind the teacher's back’: an ethnographic study of deaf people's schooling experiences in the Republic of Ireland

Science in Silence: How Educators of the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Teach Science

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