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

Social play is an essential pathway for emotional, cognitive, and social development in children. However, Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) children often experience barriers to social play, namely in mixed-hearing ability environments (e.g., school playground). In this paper, we conducted interviews with six educators and 19 children with and without hearing loss at a Partially Bilingual School, to better understand their experiences during social play. Moreover, we observed a school playground with 46 children over seven weeks at a Full Bilingual School. Findings show that social play between DHH and hearing children is influenced by school culture, peer culture, and child agency. Importantly, some of these barriers can be (partially) overcome through a supportive bilingual and bicultural environment. We propose the concept of contextualized social play technology, which defines a design space aimed at fostering peer culture and individual agency through contextualization within schools. We also provide design insights to inform the development of future inclusive play technologies.