Biliteracy, or the development of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and thinking competencies in more than one language, is a complex and dynamic process. The process is even more challenging when the languages used in the literacy process differ in modality. Biliteracy development among deaf students involves the use of visual languages (i.e., sign languages) and auditory languages (spoken languages). Deaf students' sign language proficiency is strongly related to their literacy abilities. The distinction between bilingualism and multilingualism is critical to our understanding of the underserved, the linguistic deficit, and the underachievement of deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) immigrant students, thus bringing the multilingual and immigrant aspect into the research on deaf education. Multilingual and immigrant students may face unique challenges in the course of their education. Hence, in the education of D/HH students, the intersection of issues such as biculturalism/multiculturalism, bilingualism/multilingualism, and immigration can create a dilemma for teachers and other stakeholders working with them. Deaf Education and Challenges for Bilingual/Multilingual Students is an essential reference book that provides knowledge, skills, and dispositions for teaching multicultural, multilingual, and immigrant deaf and hard of hearing students globally and identifies the challenges facing the inclusion needs of this population. This book fills a current gap in educational resources for teaching immigrant, multilingual, and multicultural deaf students in learning institutions all over the world. Covering topics such as universal design for learning, inclusion, literacy, and language acquisition, this text is crucial for classroom teachers of deaf or hard of hearing students, faculty in deaf education programs, language instructors, students, pre-service teachers, researchers, and academicians.

Who are the people with disabilities in your neighborhood? Maggie and Momma love going for walks. During every outing, Maggie learns about something new. Today's no different Momma has arranged for Maggie to meet lots of people in her neighborhood. They all have different jobs. They all come from different cultures. They all use different things to help their bodies. Maggie doesn't just stop to chit-chat. Rather, she gets to the bottom of things. By asking the right question, she discovers how many people with disabilities use aids to help them out. Let's find out how they work, too
Children will learn that disabilities occur in every culture Parents and teachers can accurately explain how various disability aids work Children will realize that working with a disability is a possibility for some Therapists can use this book as a motivational tool for patients with disabilities Kids can satisfy their curiosity about disability aids in an unimposing manner
Therapists' Acclaim:
"This book is just right for a preschooler or young elementary aged child who needs a simple introductory explanation about disabilities and accommodations. It's characters experience varied limitations and are represented by culturally diverse people in the neighborhood. The book is short, matter of fact, colorful and to the point."
--Laurie Zelinger, PhD, author of Please Explain Anxiety to Me
"Perception of a disability is life-shaping for those who are 'differently able'. it is imperative that they have assistive devices to help them lead normal lives and be perceived as 'normal'. i.e. differently able. Your book shows people living their normal lives with assistive devices which is the way it should be Thanks for your great contribution to the positive perception of people who are differently abled."
--N.Siddiq, B.Sc., M.D., CBC freelance broadcast journalist
"This book is a great resource for parents, teachers and other childhood educators to help teach children about living with a disability. It offers important lessons in tolerance, compassion and dignity."
--Mary Lynne Stewart, Director of Fund Development and Communications, March of Dimes Canada
For more info see www.JewelKats.com
From the Growing With Love Series at Loving Healing Press www.LovingHealing.com
Juvenile Fiction: Social Issues - Special Needs
Education: Special Education - Physical Disabilities

When children with learning challenges are identified, the educational community in the United States diligently applies a well-established model of remediation that has, for the most part, yielded positive results. Research, however, has demonstrated that the American perception of disability may vary from those in Eastern cultures. These cultural differences can play a significant role in the failure to achieve learning success on behalf of children from the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asian (MENASWA) families. It is critical for the school community to recognize and acknowledge these differences and bring them into alignment in order to meet these students' learning needs. Learning Challenges for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) Students With Disabilities is an essential reference publication that identifies ways in which CLD families can be involved with schools to help build educators' cultural competence and explores the idea of disabilities as a social model with a focus on strengths rather than a medical model focused on needs and weaknesses. Featuring coverage on a wide range of topics including racial identity, leadership wisdom, and family-school collaboration, this book is ideally designed for educators, principals, administrators, curriculum developers, instructional designers, policymakers, advocates, researchers, academicians, and students.

"This book will shake your preconceptions about the deaf, about language and about thought--. Sacks [is] one of the finest and most thoughtful writers of our time."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

Like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, this is a fascinating voyage into a strange and wonderful land, a provocative meditation on communication, biology, adaptation, and culture.  In Seeing Voices, Oliver Sacks turns his attention to the subject of deafness, and the result is a deeply felt portrait of a minority struggling for recognition and respect--a minority with its own rich, sometimes astonishing, culture and unique visual language, an extraordinary mode of communication that tells us much about the basis of language in hearing people as well. Seeing Voices is, as Studs Terkel has written, "an exquisite, as well as revelatory, work."

Music is unique among the arts in its ability to bring large numbers of people together in a communal creative activity transcending social, cultural and linguistic boundaries. This book looks at many examples of composers working in schools, community centres, hospitals and other situations which are not traditional contexts for music. Examples are taken from the United Kingdom as well as from projects from other places in Europe which participated in the EU-funded 'Rainbow across Europe' programme. This study examines the development over the past hundred years of what has come to be known as creative music-making, and traces its spread in other parts of Europe and beyond. It also shows how the composer's role has developed from the nineteenth-century Romantic view of a heroic figure expressing his own inner emotional life in music, towards a more socially conscious inspirational catalyst whose role is to stimulate musical creativity in others.