The current study examines the code-blending practices in the American Sign Language (ASL) and English narratives of two elementary school-aged Deaf-parented bimodal bilinguals (also known as Koda), who can hear at two points in time (T1 ages both 6;09 & T2 ages 8;01 and 8;02). The semantic propositions and frequency of code-blending are examined and compared developmentally by applying the language synthesis model in which two languages contribute to a single proposition.

The ASL target narratives are compared to the literature on code-blending patterns of Koda toddlers engaged in spontaneous conversation with Deaf interlocuters, while the English target narratives are compared to adult Codas in a narrative retelling task with Coda interlocuters . A total of eight narratives were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using ELAN transcription software which yields 124 code-blended utterances out of a total of 187.

Similar to patterns found for adult Codas, the percentage of single-sign code-blends produced by the young Kodas in the current study that contained a verb was considerably higher than the percentage that contained a noun. Differently, the data displayed multi-sign code-blends containing more than one verb; this could take place as a verb (V) and depictive verb (DV) being blended in the same utterance, two separate verbs being blended in the same sentence, as well as verb repetition in which speech matched the aspectual morphology of the sign. The results seem to echo findings on bimodal bilingual toddlers—as the children increase in age, the amount of code-blended utterances increase as well.