Language mosaic in bimodal bilingual children: experimental studies

Abstract:

This article considers the method used in an experimental study investigating the bilingual, bimodal development of deaf children with cochlear implants (CI) and hearing children with deaf parents (Kodas), between four and eight years of age. In addition to these two groups of children, deaf children of deaf parents or hearing parents, and hearing adults who had deaf parents, participated as control groups. First, we describe our experimental study and explain how we organized the data-collection fairs. Next, we outline the tests used in the study, which consider the linguistic aspects of Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and make up the linguistic mosaic of these children. We conclude with some comments on our preliminary results drawn from the data so far.

Keywords:
Language acquisition; Language assessment, Bimodal bilingualism; Hearing children; Deaf children; Cochlear implant