Language beyond the sound barrier | Amanda Howerton-Fox | TEDxManchesterHighSchool
Amanda Howerton-Fox |
TEDxManchesterHighSchool
• April 2018
Hundreds of babies born in the United States every year are at risk of never acquiring native-like ability in any language because they are born deaf to parents who do not sign.
We know there is a critical period for first language acquisition that begins to close in toddlerhood. We know that American Sign Language has all the syntactical, morphological, and phonological complexity of its spoken counterparts. We know that hearing aids and cochlear implants do not provide access to complete auditory input for many children. And we know that bilingualism has many advantages over monolingualism. Yet, an ancient and invisible boundary between normal and abnormal--between able and disabled--blinds us to the linguistic neglect of far too many children.
Amanda Howerton-Fox is an Assistant Professor of Language and Literacy Education at Iona College in New Rochelle, NY. She has been a teacher of the deaf, a teacher of English as a second language, and a professional development provider around issues of language and literacy instruction.
Dr. Howerton-Fox’s current line of research examines the kinds of linguistic knowledge that is most useful to teachers, and investigates how teacher preparation programs can help teachers to attain that knowledge. She is particularly interested in preparing teachers to work effectively with students whose languages or dialects have been historically undervalued by our nation’s schools, such as Multilingual Learners (MLLs), deaf students who use American Sign Language, and speakers of non-standard dialects.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx