This study is part of a larger longitudinal project with the aim of focusing early social interaction and development of mentalizing ability in 12 deaf infants, including the interaction between the infants and their deaf parents. The aim of the present paper is to describe early social interaction and moments of intersubjectivity between the deaf infants and their deaf parents during the first 18 months of the infant's life. The study is focused on the dyadic interaction rather than on the behaviors of the infant and the caregiver separately. In the analysis, the Intersubjective Developmental Theory Model (Loots, Devisé, & Sermijn, 2003) and the definitions of moments of intersubjectivity (Loots, Devisé, & Jacquet, 2005) were used. The findings show that the participating infants follow a typical developmental trajectory of intersubjectivity, both with regard to developmental stages and age. This development is supported by a visual, simultaneous way of communicating by gaze rather than having constant eye contact. Parents use complex visual communication skills in maintaining joint attention and also expect the infant to grasp the meaning of the interaction by use of gaze contact.

This case study longitudinally analyzes and describes the changes of attentional expressions in interchanges between a pair of fraternal twins, 1 deaf and 1 hearing, from the age of 10-40 months, and their Deaf family members. The video-observed attentional expressions of initiating and reestablishing interchange were grouped in 5 functional categories: "getting," "directing," "maintaining," "redirecting," and "checking" attention. Changes appear to be associated with development during the twins' ages of 10-13, 15-24, and 28-40 months, including the use of vision in communication. Although there are similarities in the changes of each twin's communicative initiations, there are also differences based on hearing status, personality, and use of modality. This is evident in the ways in which each twin's individual attention interchanges unfold over time; it is also connected with the parents' negotiating attention and arranging "seating positions" with them. Implications and findings for special educational purposes are discussed.

The aim of this longitudinal case study was to describe bimodal and bilingual acquisition in a hearing child, Hugo, and in what ways these were guided by his Deaf family. Video observations of the family interactions were conducted from Hugo's age of 10 months until he was 40 months old. The family language was Swedish Sign Language (SSL). With Hugo, however, the parents used one language base in which single gestural signs or vocal words were often simultaneously inserted, the latter when not in visual contact. Hugo showed awareness of visual attention to SSL communication at 22 months and differentiated vocal and gestural modality according to his partner two months later. During the 28-month and 32-month sessions, a grammatical analytic phase might explain why Hugo's SSL was rare. Findings are possibly vital for a broader international audience than professionals who meet bimodal bilingual children.

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This qualitative, longitudinal, single-case study analyzes naturalistic interactions in Swedish Sign Language. Multiple interactions took place mainly between a mother and a deaf twin on twelve occasions. The participants’ actions and language structure are examined as the child progressed from ten to forty months of age. The results are presented in three segments: transformations (i.e., types of actions during the sessions); gaze; and structure of utterances. The first segment (when the child was between ten and thirteen months of age) includes mediating utterances that contained a few signs with steady eye contact (i.e., focus on an object with mediating, displaced signing, as from the signer’s perspective). The second segment (when the child was between fifteen and twenty-four months of age) includes flexible eye contact, multiple phrases, and narrative structure. The third segment comprises conversations that include a dynamic visual contact utilizing nonmanual structures. Mediating factors such as simultaneous tactile looking, mediating vision, and mediating triangles, which may be useful for pedagogical purposes, are emphasized.