Abstract
This article focuses on the use of culture-based play, songs, and games in the early education of newcomers to the United States. Current studies examine culturally inclusive practices in PreK-12 schools in America, Canada, and Australia and suggest that parents participate more enthusiastically when their cultural orientation is honored. Although there is scant research regarding in-home early intervention for infants and toddlers who are deaf or hard of hearing for recent immigrants to the United States, the same principle may hold true for this group of immigrants. The type of parent involvement that an early interventionist in the U.S. hopes to elicit in new immigrant families thoughtfully builds on a family’s own knowledge—engaging them in activities that promote child development, language, and literacy using cultural and linguistic practices that respect and support them. The article concludes with one deaf educator’s account of using informal cultural assessment with newcomer families that leads to strategies to engage them in early intervention activities with their infants and toddlers who are deaf or hard of hearing (Appendix A). We include an appendix of songs, nursery rhymes, and games for infants and toddlers in Spanish and English (Appendix B).
Recommended Citation
Wieber, W. B. & Sumner, L. Q. (2016). Promoting Immigrant Parents’ Engagement in Early Intervention Through Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Service Delivery. Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention, 1(1), 78-86. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15142/T3V304
Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/jehdi/vol1/iss1/10
Included in
Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, Special Education and Teaching Commons
