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[Development of the National Languages Act [of Taiwan]. (2019, January 9). Ministry of Culture. ] incorporating Taiwanese Sign Language (TSL) evolved from Taiwan's historical linguistic ecology and intertwined with the linguistic ecology of Taiwan's Deaf community. Utilising a qualitative document analysis incorporating a language planning and policy framework [Cooper, R. L. (1989). Language planning and social change. Cambridge University Press; Reagan, T. (2022). Language planning and language policies for sign languages: an emerging civil rights movement. Sociolinguistica, 36(1-2), 169–182], we analyze how this law fits into Taiwan's multicultural milieu. Specifically, we analyze the transmission, revival, and development of TSL by legislating status, acquisition, corpus, and prestige planning for teaching TSL to hearing learners. Secondly, gaps are identified, such as establishing early TSL access to the birth to age five deaf learners and their caregivers, promoting Chinese literacy with TSL strategies, and hiring native Deaf signing teachers. Limitations and future directions for research and practice are then outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An exploratory study was implemented with bilingual deaf children using a quasi-experimental pre- and posttest design with a 10-week American Sign Language (ASL) and English bilingual Shared Book Reading intervention. Standardized and research-made instruments were used to evaluate ASL and English skills. Intervention effects showed improvements in Receptive ASL skills, Book Reading, and the ability to draw and describe drawings in both languages. Growth in visual phonology was evident in the drawings, and no relationship between auditory phonology and English word identification was found. The results provide implications for early literacy instruction with suggestions for future research.