The Limits of “Communication Mode” as a Construct

Abstract

Questions about communication mode (a.k.a. “communication options” or “communication opportunities”) remain among the most controversial issues in the many fields that are concerned with the development and well-being of children (and adults) who are d/Deaf or hard of hearing. In this manuscript, we argue that a large part of the reason that this debate persists is due to limitations of the construct itself. We focus on what we term “the crucial question”: namely, what kind of experience with linguistic input during infancy and toddlerhood is most likely to result in mastery of at least one language (spoken or signed) by school entry. We argue that the construct of communication mode—as currently construed—actively prevents the discovery of compelling answers to that question. To substantiate our argument, we present a review of a relevant subset of the recent empirical literature and document the prevalence of our concerns. We conclude by articulating the desiderata of an alternative construct that, if appropriately measured, would have the potential to yield answers to what we identify as “the crucial question.”

The Input Matters: Assessing Cumulative Language Access in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Individuals and Populations

“…Third, and most relevant to the present argument, the very construct that researchers have used in an attempt to answer this question (i.e., "communication mode") is ill-defined. Hall and Dills (2020) point out that in addition to the absence of any uniform operationalization of the term, it typically does not provide any information about what a child's experience was like during infancy and toddlerhood, and it commonly conflates types of input that are very different (e.g., ASL, sign-supported speech, and manually coded English). They identify the desiderata of a better alternative and argue that until such an alternative is available, it will remain impossible to identify the kinds of strategies that the CDC rightly identifies as crucial gaps in knowledge.…”

“…However, given the aforementioned limitations of communication mode as a construct, it is worth considering the desiderata of a better measure of language input for DHH children. The following recommendations are drawn from Hall and Dills (2020).…”

“…That is, a researcher or policy maker makes a set of a priori decisions about what groups are relevant to compare, sets criteria for inclusion in those groups, and then proceeds to compare outcomes between/among those groups. Usually, this involves comparing a DHH children who use listening and spoken language exclusively against those who do not (Hall and Dills, 2020). One virtue of this approach is that it covers the entire parameter space, since every child can be characterized as belonging to either one or the other.…”

“…A second response to the complexity and diversity of DHH children's cumulative experiences with input has been to rely on the construct of "communication mode" as a proxy for describing DHH children's cumulative experience with language input. Unfortunately, this construct is typically used in ways that are too simplistic to reflect children's actual experiences, and too variable across studies to support meaningful generalization (Hall and Dills, 2020). This Conceptual Analysis argues that clinicians and researchers must reconsider the ways that we assess DHH children's input, adopting methods that recognize its diverse and multidimensional nature throughout the crucial language-learning years of infancy and toddlerhood, and take dose-response functions into consideration.…”

The Writing Process and the Written Product in Bimodal Bilingual Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children

“…Another issue related to this knowledge gap is that several DHH studies have not taken their participants' bimodal bilingual backgrounds into consideration, but instead this group has often been compared to monolingual hearing controls, thus, not taking into account potential differences regarding their different linguistic backgrounds (e.g., Hall and Dills 2020). Furthermore, although there is a handful of studies about the bimodal bilingual effect on the literacy outcomes (notably Hassanzadeh 2012; Davidson et al 2014;Amraei et al 2017;Gärdenfors et al 2019;Gärdenfors n.d.), there are almost no studies on how bimodal bilingualism affects the real time process of writing (such as writing speed, pause behavior and revisions; however, see Gärdenfors et al 2019).…”