Joy Plote

For decades, researchers have studied child language brokering—the phenomenon where children translate adult conversations, documents, and decisions for their families. Most of this research focuses on immigrant households, where children translate for parents navigating systems in a new language. But there is a population hiding in plain sight. Codas—Children of Deaf Adults—have been doing this […]

What People and Professionals Need to Know Joy Plote, LPC, CCTS I&F, CI/CT Dinner Table Syndrome (DTS) describes the experience of being physically present but excluded from family communication because others do not use accessible language (e.g., ASL). Deaf children and Deaf adults often sit at a table where conversations happen around them — not […]

When we talk about human connection, we often think of empathy — our ability to understand how someone else feels. But underneath empathy lies something even more fundamental: Theory of Mind (ToM). It’s our brain’s ability to recognize that other people have thoughts, beliefs, and emotions that are separate from our own. For most hearing […]