How a deaf boy gamed his way to second-language acquisition: Tales of intersubjectivity

Abstract

Taking an experiential approach to language development, this article links gaming to the language development of a 10-year-old deaf child under speech therapy. Specifically, it examines face-to-face interactions between mediators and the child, during 1 year of gaming in clinical encounters. To do so, it codes data by means of interactional variables (intentionality and subjectivity/intersubjectivity) and textual variables (function versus content words). Results show that gaming yielded affordances in the use of strategic behavior and syntax by the child. They also reveal that repetition is a recurrent communicative strategy that contributes to meaning making, culture learning, and discursive involvement. Furthermore, role reversals by the child and the mediators suggest that gaming played a constitutive part in the development of the boy's subjectivity/intersubjectivity—ultimately, in his development of Portuguese as a second language.

Communication between Children with Deafness, Blindness and Deafblindness and their Social Partners: An Intersubjective Developmental Perspective

“…In this review, we found one intervention that explicitly focused on this kind of optimisation: the DIM/Contact Program (Janssen et al, 2003). Although the effects of the video-feedback intervention on more elaborate ways of meaning-making are as yet unclear, studies that concern the development of tertiary intersubjectivity in children with deafness (Loots et al, 2005;Saliés & Starosky, 2008;Swanwick & Watson, 2007) and blindness (Junefelt, 2004;Wilson & Peters, 1988) suggest that other partner strategies need to be added to mediate the development of joint attention and the use of referential and symbolic communication. This intervention might also help to establish sustained dyadic interaction between children with deafness and their hearing partners, paving the way for sharing different kinds of meanings in conversations.…”

“…The term "intersubjectivity" was not used for the study variables in most of these studies (except for Loots, Devisé, & Jacquet, 2005;Saliés & Starosky, 2008). Although other authors did not explicitly measure "intersubjectivity", they measured variables that could be attributed to one of the layers of intersubjectivity that Trevarthen described.…”

“…Video-recordings were transcribed in six studies (Junefelt, 2004;Preisler, 1991Preisler, , 1995Preisler, Tvingstedt, & Ahlstrom, 2002, 2005Saliés & Starosky, 2008). The majority of the observation studies explicitly mentioned that they recorded interactions on video.…”

“…Saliés and Starosky (2008) analysed eight interactions between a 10-year-old child with deafness and a speech therapist playing a number of board games. Saliés and Starosky (2008) analysed eight interactions between a 10-year-old child with deafness and a speech therapist playing a number of board games.…”

“…After their analysis of the transcribed videos from the sessions, Saliés and Starosky (2008) concluded that their subject increasingly used his own perspective, talked about his feelings and understood that his opponent had the opportunity to cheat. These abilities are found in the third layer of intersubjective development.…”