Around the world, there are large numbers of deaf children who are born into hearing families, occasioning a likelihood that they will face barriers in accessing the language(s) used in their homes. If barriers to language access persist, deaf individuals may live with reduced access to linguistic resources into childhood, adolescence, and even adulthood. This research project investigates the interactional and communicative lives of deaf youth, who live in this situation in Iquitos, Peru. The project combines two years of ethnographic fieldwork and the microanalysis of video recorded interactions in the homes and schools of ten deaf youth growing up in Iquitos, Peru.

This is a longitudinal project that documents language development in the deaf education program that I worked with parents to establish in Iquitos in 2016. The majority of the children who enter the school have not had sufficient access to Spanish or Peruvian Sign Language to acquire either language. The school provides the first site where these children have the opportunity to interact with other deaf individuals. The project combines video recordings of naturally occurring interactions, linguistic and cognitive elicitation tasks, and interviews to explore these students' language development.