Author: Caitlin Bumpass Major: Communication Disorders

During my Fall semester of 2020, I worked alongside my mentor, Dr.Bowers, and research partner on our research project. Our project began with determining several journals within the disciplines of Speech Language Pathology and Deaf education. From these journals, we researched for a functional definition of bimodal bilingualism. For the purpose of this study, bimodal bilingualism will be identified as children who use both a signed and a spoken language. We later split our project based on disciplines, with my focus being on the definition of bimodal bilingualism in Deaf education.

My research began with gathering information and data for my literature review. One of the challenges with bimodal bilingualism is the lack of research that has been conducted on it. Due to the lack of information, it did assist in helping me to narrow down my search to obtain the results that would be useful for this project. It was also important for me to gain knowledge on this history of American Sign Language and identifying the properties of language. This information provides a foundation for the project, leading into our research question.

There were some challenges in developing our research question, but we were able to adapt and persevere through those challenges. Last semester our project was impacted by the outbreak of COVID-19, which resulted in having to develop a new research question. I have now begun a content review of bimodal bilingualism in three articles on Deaf education. There were many anxieties about if we were following the timeline for the completion of our project, but Dr.Bowers was extremely comforting. She has been in consistent contact with us, providing us with comfort, guidance, and a timeline to follow to make sure that we are all doing our best. Now that we have had to change to a content review, Dr.Bowers has been extremely supportive in guiding us in this new approach and research question. We have met weekly throughout the semester discussing any new questions, the progress of our research, and any concerns that we may have. She provides guidance into the future developments that overall helps us to not panic or stress when coping with these unfortunate circumstances.

Despite the challenges that we have faced in the emergence of COVID-19 and the adaptations made to our research approach, we have been able to continue our research. From this, I have discovered that within the Deaf education journals, bimodal bilingualism generally refers to individuals (the focus of this study will be on children) who are fluent in both spoken English and American Sign Language. It appears that there has been a plentiful amount of research gathered on bimodal bilingualism use in children in Deaf education. Through these articles, we have been able to find some consistent definitions of bimodal/bilingual, but the research is still ongoing.

Through this Honors College Research Grant, I have been able to learn more about two different languages, their modalities, and how they correlate within the discipline of Deaf education. This information gathered will be helpful in my major and my future career as a Speech-Language Pathologist. I plan to finish my research this semester and delve into writing my thesis during the Spring of 2021. Through this project, I hope to give insight into how important it is to have a consistent, operational definition of bimodal bilingualism within various studies in Deaf education.