Social Play Between Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children and Hearing Peers: Learning from Children and School Ecosystems

Paper Title

Social Play Between Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children and Hearing Peers: Learning from Children and School Ecosystems

Publication Info

• Topic area: Inclusive social play for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) children in mixed-hearing school environments.
• Keywords: Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH), social play, mixed-hearing environments, school ecosystems, bilingual education, bicultural awareness, peer culture, child agency, inclusive technology, contextualized social play.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: DHH children face barriers to social play with hearing peers due to language differences, cultural misunderstandings, and lack of inclusive environments. Existing research and interventions have focused on academic participation, neglecting informal social interactions and play.
• Significance: Social play is critical for children’s emotional, cognitive, and social development, offering opportunities for language acquisition, literacy, and social integration, especially for DHH children in hearing-dominant societies.
• Motivation and related work: Prior work in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has explored inclusive technologies for mixed-ability groups but has largely overlooked mixed-hearing settings. Challenges in these settings stem from cultural and linguistic differences, which require new approaches to foster inclusive play.

Solution

• Proposed approach: Contextualized Social Play Technology—a design framework that supports inclusive social play by addressing school culture, peer culture, and individual agency.
• Novelty:
  1. Identification of cultural and linguistic barriers to social play in mixed-hearing environments.
  2. Introduction of a three-layered framework (school culture, peer culture, and personal agency) for designing inclusive play technologies.
  3. Empirical insights from two distinct school ecosystems (Partially Bilingual and Full Bilingual Schools).
  4. Design recommendations for fostering bicultural interactions and shared peer culture through technology.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted interviews with 19 children and 6 educators at a Partially Bilingual School.
  • Observed playground interactions among 46 children over 7 weeks at a Full Bilingual School.
  • Used drawing activities, semi-structured interviews, and thematic analysis to identify barriers and facilitators of social play.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • At the Partially Bilingual School, language barriers and lack of bicultural awareness led to segregated play patterns.
  • At the Full Bilingual School, challenges included mismatched peer cultures, communication preferences, and limited child agency.
  • Facilitators of mixed-hearing play included trusted friendships and collaborative play tools.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Highlights the role of school ecosystems and peer culture in shaping social play, moving beyond individual skill-focused interventions.
  • Proposes a dynamic, context-sensitive framework for designing inclusive technologies.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Multi-method qualitative approach across two schools with distinct cultural ecosystems.
  • Observations categorized play behaviors, social levels, and challenges/facilitators.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Limited sample size at the Partially Bilingual School.
  • Need for broader integration of methodologies across multiple school settings.
  • Future research could include caregiver perspectives and explore home-school cultural interactions.

Summary

This study investigates the social play experiences of mixed-hearing children in two distinct school ecosystems. It identifies language barriers, cultural differences, and agency limitations as key challenges, while trusted friendships and collaborative play tools act as facilitators. The proposed Contextualized Social Play Technology framework emphasizes the interplay of school culture, peer culture, and individual agency in fostering inclusive play. This framework provides actionable insights for designing technologies that promote bicultural interactions and shared peer culture, with implications for educators, policymakers, and designers aiming to create inclusive educational environments.