A fifth-grade student with severe bilateral hearing loss uses ASL; which statement best reflects Cummins' theory about BICS and CALP in language development?

A fifth-grade student with severe bilateral hearing loss uses ASL; which statement best reflects Cummins' theory about BICS and CALP in language development?

• A. Indirect access to communication may restrict the development of BICS.
• B. BICS and CALP are universally acquired and develop solely based on chronological age.
• C. The transfer of BICS will likely occur between ASL and English as the student acquires English.
• D. The BICS/BALCALP distinction does not apply to ASL due to visual language.

Answer: (C)

Cummins’ ideas separate language into two layers: BICS, the everyday social language we use in informal settings, and CALP, the academic language needed for school tasks. He also proposed that skills in one language can support development in another—the interdependence of languages. For a student who uses ASL, the everyday conversational proficiency developed in ASL provides a strong foundation that can transfer to English as the student begins to use English in social and classroom contexts. This cross-language transfer helps the student build English BICS more smoothly while CALP in English will still require targeted instruction and practice. So, the statement about BICS transferring between ASL and English as English is learned best captures this dynamic. The other options don’t reflect this pattern: BICS/CALP aren’t guaranteed by age alone, the distinction does apply across languages including ASL, and while access to communication matters, the core idea is about cross-language transfer of everyday language skills.

Cummins’ ideas separate language into two layers: BICS, the everyday social language we use in informal settings, and CALP, the academic language needed for school tasks. He also proposed that skills in one language can support development in another—the interdependence of languages. For a student who uses ASL, the everyday conversational proficiency developed in ASL provides a strong foundation that can transfer to English as the student begins to use English in social and classroom contexts. This cross-language transfer helps the student build English BICS more smoothly while CALP in English will still require targeted instruction and practice. So, the statement about BICS transferring between ASL and English as English is learned best captures this dynamic. The other options don’t reflect this pattern: BICS/CALP aren’t guaranteed by age alone, the distinction does apply across languages including ASL, and while access to communication matters, the core idea is about cross-language transfer of everyday language skills.