1 Toward a Social Relational Model of Deaf Childhood Kristin Snoddon and Kathryn Underwood Points of Interest • In a current early intervention context, young Deaf children are faced with conflicting messages about learning signed and spoken languages. • We argue that a social relational model of Deaf childhood is appropriate. This model tries to account for differences in every child and in his/her communities. • The first author’s research describes a program for parents and young Deaf children. The parents learned how to sign children’s books. • The research shows how a social relational model fits with the lives of different Deaf children. Abstract This paper advances a social relational model of Deaf childhood as a guiding framework for working with Deaf children in a present-day universal neonatal hearing screening and early intervention context. The authors discuss how Deaf children are contextualized in a medical model discourse, in a social model of Deaf childhood, and in a Deaf culture discourse. A social relational model is then discussed in with reference to a capability approach and to findings from the first author’s study of parents and young children participating in an American Sign Language (ASL) shared reading program in Ontario, Canada. Introduction In the current context of universal neonatal hearing screening and follow-up early intervention services, Deaf children frequently face competing discourses surrounding signed and spoken languages, and what it means to be Deaf. Deaf studies scholars have