Language and Literacy Corner: Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills vs Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency

Two types of language exist in human interaction. Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) are the language skills needed in social situations. It is the day-to-day language used to interact with other people. A student may use their BICS on the playground, in the lunch room, on the school bus and playing sports. These social interactions usually include context cues and occur
in a meaningful, experiential setting.

The language required to participate in the social exchange require minimal thinking. While interpersonal communication is important to child development, schools and families need to take care to not to assume a social student has adequate language to develop literacy.

Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) is the formal academic language required for listening/seeing, speaking/signing, reading and writing about content material. Having age level CALP skills is essential for students to succeed in school. Academic language acquisition is not just the understanding of content area vocabulary; it includes skills such as comparing, classifying, synthesizing, evaluating and inferring information read from a textbook or presented by the teacher out of context.

As a student gets older, the context of academic tasks becomes more and more reduced, requiring the ability to use of different cognitive skills. 

Deaf and hard of hearing students are best served when their language is monitored by formal testing annually until they demonstrate cognitive academic proficiency; both receptively and expressively (written, oral and/or sign). When language skills are regularly monitored, educational programming can be tailored to the student in a more precise and focused manner.

Center staff can consult with you about language and literacy including:

• Consult on goals
• Share techniques to help DHH students
• Brainstorm ideas to improve a student's language development