“It’s Like Stealing What Should be Theirs.” An Exploration of the Experiences and Perspectives of Parents and Educational Practitioners on Hebrew–English Bilingualism for Jewish Autistic Children

Parents of autistic children are routinely advised to raise them monolingually, despite potential negative effects of monolingualism and no evidence of harm from bilingualism. There is, however, limited research on this topic. This study explored experiences and perspectives of educational practitio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of autism and developmental disorders 2022-10, Vol.52 (10), p.4440-4473
Main Authors: Sher, David Ariel, Gibson, Jenny L., Browne, Wendy V.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Autism
Autism Spectrum Disorders
Autistic children
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Beliefs, opinions and attitudes
Bilingual education
Bilingualism
Child and School Psychology
Children
Decision making
Demographic aspects
Education
English
English language
Experience
Families & family life
Hebrew
Hebrew language
Interpretative phenomenological analysis
Jews
Language
Monolingualism
Neurosciences
Original Paper
Parent Attitudes
Parent-child relations
Parents
Parents & parenting
Pediatrics
Psychology
Public Health
Social aspects
Special education teachers
Teacher Attitudes
Teachers of disabled children
Teaching Experience
Theft
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Summary:Parents of autistic children are routinely advised to raise them monolingually, despite potential negative effects of monolingualism and no evidence of harm from bilingualism. There is, however, limited research on this topic. This study explored experiences and perspectives of educational practitioners (‘practitioners’) and parents of Hebrew–English bilingual autistic children on bilingualism and monolingualism. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, we explored the experiences of 22 parents and 31 practitioners using both oral and written interviews. The analysis revealed that religious continuity is a crucial factor in bilingual decision-making. Unexpectedly, both practitioners and parents felt that having to adopt a monolingual approach was unjust, in line with conceptions of forced monolingualism. This article recommends awareness training on community languages and research in other communities.
ISSN:0162-3257
1573-3432
DOI:10.1007/s10803-021-05314-z