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The deaf children under consideration in this paper are a group of deaf children with emerging bilingual skills. Their families have all been part of an early years 'Bilingual Support Programme' from the time of diagnosis of deafness. The policy of the L.E.A. in which they live is one of Bilingual Support within a Total Communication philosophy. The children and their families have had ongoing support from both deaf adults who are native sign language users and teachers of the deaf as well as a variety of other involved professionals. All the children and their families have experienced a bilingual support programme regardless of the degree of deafness of the child.
All children will have been exposed to both English and Sign Language in varying degrees. For some their exposure to Sign Language will have been from deaf adults within the home or in a group situation where they will also have met other sign language using children. For others, their families have begun to develop sign language skills themselves and are using them with their children. They will all have had exposure to English as the first language of the home and as the majority language of the society in which they live. For some of the children their preferred first language may be already becoming clear, for others it is not. So for these reasons they may be considered as a group of emerging bilingual deaf children.
If consideration is to be given to appropriate nursery experience for deaf children then first it is important to address the aims of nursery provision and the nursery 'curriculum' for all children. Deaf children are entitled to equality of access to the same broad and balanced nursery curriculum as hearing children.
It is not appropriate in the context of this paper to comprehensively describe the philosophy, policy and practice of nursery education but to highlight the general aims of nursery provision and emphasise the fact that it is probably the first experience a child has of a social setting outside the home. It is an environment where the complex needs of the 'whole' child are continually addressed but for the purposes of this paper the focus of the child's development within the nursery setting has been divided into four areas. There has been no priority given to the order in which these issues are considered.
The nursery can be considered as :-
1. A learning environment - where children have the opportunity to learn through play and through an exploration of their surroundings. Nursery, with its planned range of activities, provides a broad and appropriate setting for this to happen. It is accepted that most active and productive learning takes place when this play and exploration is accompanied by interaction with a more sophisticated learner; either adult or peer group learners. The curriculum in the nursery is flexible enough to allow children to explore their environment and the activities at a level appropriate to their own cognitive and learning development.
2. A physical environment - where children can explore and develop their own physical potential . Healthy bodily development and physical growth can influence the way a child will interact with and operate in his/her physical environment
3. A linguistic environment - where the environment will give children the opportunity to continue to develop their already established linguistic skills. There is an underlying assumption, in the context of an educational nursery, that children do not come to nursery to acquire language but that they come with language already developed in a context of age appropriateness and within the nursery setting they are able to develop those skills further.
There are many professionals involved in nursery education who maintain that they can no longer assume that this is true but it still seems to be the fact that nurseries are organised on the basis of an already established linguistic base. Children who come to nursery with poorly developed linguistic skills are an 'issue' for nurseries. Nursery is a place for language which is developing 'normally' to continue to develop. What is well established is that language development is at its most productive again through interaction with more sophisticated language users, be they adults or peers with a more developed linguistic base.
4. As a social environment - where children have the opportunity to transfer the linguistic and social skills they have developed in the home setting with parents, siblings and extended family (appropriate interaction, sharing, functioning as part of a small group), into the broader social world. The nursery setting is a world where there is likely to be a proportionately larger peer group and smaller adult group. Within that group children have the opportunity to 'practice' their social skills in a wider social setting. Their social and emotional development will enable them to move gradually from a dependent state both functionally and emotionally towards independence. It could be argued that the most important and unique aspect of nursery is the social setting.
It could also be argued that all other aspects of nursery provision ( that is linguistic experiences, learning experiences and physical experiences) are available outside the nursery setting. There is now a great deal of research evidence to suggest that the home environment is the primary source for language development (and not just because it is the earliest, but also the most appropriate and stimulating source) and that parents or carers are the most appropriate and efficient teachers of language to their children.
Similarly, the experience of family life provides an appropriate and stimulating learning environment ensuring the promotion of cognitive skills. The catch all phrase 'good enough' parenting is certainly good enough for most children to develop appropriate cognitive, linguistic and physical skills. In other words perfectly average, everyday family life provides a very rich developmental experience for children.
It is suggested that, with so much TV and video viewing etc. in the home, the role of nursery has changed. Now the role is to provide many of the experiences that home is perceived as not providing and many nurseries would now argue that their main aim is to give the children the breadth of experiences they are considered not to have in their everyday life, but this depends very much on the individual nursery and its' social setting.
There is no question here of devaluing or questioning the role or place of nursery in the development of young children but consideration needs to given to what precisely it is offering or what needs it is meeting for all children and for deaf children in particular.
Consideration needs to be given to the linguistic and social context of young deaf children before a decision about appropriate nursery provision can be made. As for all children, the needs of deaf children should be assessed and carefully identified before a decision can be made about how their specific needs may be met in the nursery setting.
It is important not to over generalise but there is enough research evidence to suggest that for deaf children entering nursery, the following is often the case; (particularly for the 90 % of deaf children who have hearing parents and particularly if they are encouraged to enter an education nursery as soon as they three.)
It is undoubtedly true that the these three areas are interlinked and it is argued that the common significant factor is the child's developing linguistic or communicative skill and fluency.
It must also be acknowledged that it is not usual for children at the relatively early stage of acquiring fluency in their first language to be placed in an education nursery setting. If they are then they are an 'issue' for nursery and will require appropriate additional support.
It can be seen that the aims and expectations of nursery experience for some deaf children may be different from the vast majority of hearing children. We could be placing deaf children in nursery settings when many of the skills they require to productively access the environment may be under developed.
For most deaf children then the primary aim of their nursery experience may be to develop linguistic skills so that they may then develop the social interactive skills necessary to access fully the social setting of the nursery. This would then encourage the comfortable emotional development and social repertoire which leads to a greater sense of identity. This is not here an issue about deaf identity or hearing identity but the identity of self which in turn leads to greater independence and autonomy.
The following question needs careful consideration.
If the primary aim of nursery experience for hearing children is a social setting in which to develop other skills; and the primary aim for deaf children is to develop their linguistic skills; can the same nursery setting meet both these needs?
Does this question suggest that there should be differentiated nursery provision for deaf children? This is not to say provision should be segregated but careful thought needs to be given to how and when placement in the mainstream setting is made to ensure that deaf children are able to fully access the potential of the mainstream nursery. Consideration must also be given to the appropriate amount and type of support given to deaf children in that setting. Then thought needs to be given to how and in what ways these additional resources although appropriate for the deaf child, may affect the mainstream environment. This is then the focus of this paper.
The focus of this study is the small group of deaf children who are part of a bilingual support programme and for whom their nursery provision is partly in BSL nursery and partly in the mainstream nursery. The first aim of this study is to consider and compare the opportunities for interaction in both the BSL and mainstream nurseries and the second aim is to consider whether deaf children have equal opportunity of access to the mainstream nursery curriculum as their hearing peers.
Consideration has been given to the social and linguistic interactive opportunities in the both nursery settings for a group of seven deaf children in relation to:-
1. the activities available in the nursery setting
2. the interactive groupings experienced by the children
The BSL nursery is staffed solely by deaf adults where the staff/child ratio is 2/3 adults to 7 deaf children. The language of the nursery is BSL and the activities on offer within the nursery fall into five identified categories.
There follows a list of the categories with some examples of the activities available within them and an identification of the possible linguistic opportunities dictated by the nature of the activity offered. The implication is that in the natural setting of the nursery there is opportunity to continue to develop receptive and expressive linguistic skills within a broad spectrum of communicative functions.
Linguistic opportunities include direction, encouragement and discussion of ways in which the child is led towards successful completion of the prescribed task.
Linguistic opportunities include the introduction of choices, alternatives and the encouragement of children to describe or comment upon their own work.
Linguistic opportunities include a description of the activity, the giving and understanding of instructions and the introduction of new vocabulary.
Linguistic opportunities include the offering of new ideas, opportunities for children to explore their own ideas, discussion of experiences and the introduction of new vocabulary.
This situation offers linguistic opportunities which are in many ways unique. Deaf children can experience in their first language, the language of familiar situations they encounter in the 'wider world' of home or shopping. They can experience adult/child interaction in these settings but also have access to adult/adult 'conversations' around these common situations. These 'conversations' are an essential part of language development and commonplace in the home situation for hearing children but not for those deaf children of hearing parents. The dramatisation of stories gives children the opportunity to experience a live story enacted by adults and then to develop the roles for themselves.
The mainstream nursery is staffed by hearing adults where the staff/child ratio is 2 adults to 26 children and the language of the nursery is English. The activities in the nursery fall into the same categories as the BSL nursery but there were many more options within the categories. There were additional options of an ongoing book corner, individual choice of activities from shelves or cupboards and the option of outside play.
When the deaf children are in the nursery they are always accompanied by two adults; normally a teacher of the deaf and a deaf instructor. This means that the child staff ratio in the nursery is four adults to thirty three children.
The study was based upon a group of seven deaf children of nursery age.
Each child was tracked for individually 1 hour of the nursery setting at the same time each day. The following observations were recorded.
This time 'on task' was defined as time spent at the activity; other time was defined as time 'off task'.
A record was also kept of the mix of social groupings experienced by the child while they were present at the activities.
Results and analysis of BSL Nursery Observations.
1. Children were on task for at least 78% of the time - that is children were engaged in an activity for a relatively high proportion of their time.
Is there a relationship between the smaller number of activities in the BSL nursery and the high level of involvement? Is the high level of adult interaction significant?
2. For more than half of the time in nursery an adult was present either as part of the group or in a one to one situation with the children.
This is a very high proportion of the time; certainly in relation to a hearing child in mainstream nursery.
3. Role play and exploratory play were by far the most popular activities.
Is this because of the type of activity in that it is fertile ground for relaxed communication? Is it because this type of activity offers easy access for adult intervention and a natural scenario for adults to play alongside children?
4. Differences in age and degree of deafness did not appear to make any difference to the way the children responded to nursery. ( except for one child who spent less than 50% of time actively engaged in activities. It is not possible to draw any direct conclusions on the basis of one child, but it may be significant that he was the only child whose preferred language was English)
It seemed that 'access ' to the BSL nursery was not affected by age, hearing loss or linguistic development.
When analysing the data from the mainstream nursery it quickly became obvious that a major influencing factor was staff composition in the mainstream nursery. The experience of the deaf children in mainstream nursery was significantly different when a deaf adult was present than when all the staff were hearing. This was despite the fact that two of the hearing staff had signing skills.
It was not then possible to directly relate and compare a BSL nursery setting to a mainstream nursery setting. It became obvious that the need was to separate the data collected in the mainstream nursery when a deaf adult was included in the staff of four. The data collected when all the staff were hearing should be considered separately.
The most significant results were as follows:-
1. When a deaf adult was present in the nursery
2. When there was no deaf adult present in the nursery.
There were some variables in the mainstream nursery which affected the children's use of time. These were not comparable with the BSL nursery.
1. Outside play was optional for all the nursery children but all deaf children always took advantage of the whole time. This may have been because they had a longer day in nursery and enjoyed the option of outside play. It may be because it is a less closely interactive environment and therefore seen as more relaxing. There seemed to be more integrated play outside. There was more communication between deaf and hearing children outside throughout some relatively complicated cycling track games.
2. Deaf children never took advantage of the option to select, independently, activities from cupboards or shelves.
3. Deaf children appeared to view the mainstream nursery staff as in charge of the overall nursery, seeing them in an administrative role where most of the interaction with them was connected with issues such as milk, toilet and biscuits; also when deaf children chose to join a directed activity organised by mainstream staff. This happened rarely in the course of this study.
The most significant fact to emerge from this small study was the influence of a deaf adult in the mainstream setting.
The BSL nursery with its high staff ratio and high level of adult/child interaction could be considered to be a reflection of the family environment. The deaf adults immediate accessibility to the children, the opportunity for a high level of adult involvement in play and the security and comfort of the presence of two adults sometimes conversing amongst themselves reflects many of the aspects of home and family life. It seems that when a deaf adult is present in the mainstream nursery this 'family' situation is recreated within this setting. It could be argued then that the deaf children and the deaf adult are creating their own BSL environment in the mainstream setting. Therefore it is a fact that even though the children are in the mainstream setting they are not necessarily in an English environment.
Both the BSL nursery and mainstream nursery, with the presence of a deaf adult, are ideal for meeting the linguistic needs of the deaf children whose language development is delayed or not yet age appropriately developed, and for whom the primary aim of the nursery setting is to meet their linguistic needs.
If we accept that the needs of the deaf children coming to nursery may be to acquire and develop a first language then the question is whether it is appropriate to consider mainstream nursery placement on the basis of linguistic development rather than age? Or should the initial nursery experience remain in the small 'family environment' until appropriate linguistic skills are developed?
If the aims of placement in mainstream nursery are for deaf children to have equality of access to the nursery curriculum or to develop their English skills, as a first or second language, then it seems that those needs may be more fully met when all the staff in the nursery are hearing.
1. Are nursery experiences different in different linguistic settings?
2. Should the aim for mainstream nursery be a monolingual or a bilingual setting ?
3. If the aim is for a bilingual setting then should deaf adults be more involved in all nursery activities?
4. If children are having an identified 'BSL nursery time' then should mainstream nursery be 'English time'?
5. Is there a case for language separation at this early stage?
There are implications for the development of independent learning skills. There is concern, among support staff, for deaf children who do not develop responsibility for their own learning. The question is how soon should this be addressed? A balance needs to be struck between the adult/child interaction imperative for linguistic development and the need for the child to develop functional, social and learning independence skills.
Finally if equality of nursery experience for deaf children is an aim then a comparable view may be given by considering a control group of hearing children ( same age, sex, length of time in nursery ) in the same mainstream nursery setting. Work needs to be done to begin to identify significant differences in hearing/deaf experiences in mainstream nursery settings.