Whose literacy is it, anyway? strengths-based guidelines for transforming the developmental environments of deaf children and adolescents

Abstract

In this chapter, the literature on resilience is discussed in relation to the results of phenomenological research on a cohort of deaf children and adolescents sharing their perspectives on their lifeworlds (Sheridan, Inner lives of deaf children: Interviews and analysis, Gallaudet University Press, Washington, DC, 2001; Sheridan, Deaf adolescents: Inner lives and lifeworld development, Gallaudet University Press, Washington, DC, 2008). Internal and external protective factors and dispositional attributes of resilience are discussed. Guidelines emerging from the research which were designed to optimize the developmental environments of deaf children and adolescents through multisystemic collaborations with the youth (Sheridan, 2008) are shown to be consistent with a resilience building framework. Through a transcendent, empowering process in collaboration with deaf youth, professionals and parents are challenged to recognize and utilize the existing strengths and talents that deaf children and adolescents possess while simultaneously cultivating their own deaf - literacies and deaf - literate formative environments. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.