title: Modality use in joint attention between hearing parents and deaf children.
abstract: The present study examined differences in modality use during episodes of joint attention between hearing parent-hearing child dyads and hearing parent-deaf child dyads. Hearing children were age-matched to deaf children. Dyads were video recorded in a free play session with analyses focused on uni- and multimodality use during joint attention episodes. Results revealed that adults in hearing parent-deaf child dyads spent a significantly greater proportion of time interacting with their children using multiple communicative modalities than adults in hearing parent-hearing child dyads, who tended to use the auditory modality (e.g., oral language) most often. While these findings demonstrate that hearing parents accommodate their children's hearing status, we observed greater overall time spent in joint attention in hearing parent-hearing child dyads than hearing parent-deaf child dyads. Our results point to important avenues for future research on how parents can better accommodate their child's hearing status through the use of multimodal communication strategies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs CT, USA.
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Depowski
authors.affiliation: Head and Neck Surgery, Department of Otolaryngology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford CA, USA.
authors.forename: Homer
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Abaya
authors.affiliation: Head and Neck Surgery, Department of Otolaryngology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford CA, USA.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Oghalai
authors.affiliation: Psychological Sciences, University of California, Merced Merced, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Heather
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bortfeld
keywords: ELAN; Parent-child communication; cochlear implants; deaf; joint attention; multimodal communication