Editorial

This editorial outlines the problematics related to metalinguistic awareness (MLA) and bimodal bilingualism in deaf and hearing subjects, and describes a series of contributions that illustrate some major theoretical and methodological issues. Among these, the definitional criteria of MLA in signed as compared to spoken languages, the creation and use of assessment tools differently conceived in relation to the age of participants, the extent to which metalinguistic benefits associated to unimodal bilingualism can also be found in bimodal bilingualism, the developmental patterns we can find in bimodal bilingual children in each of their languages, signed and spoken, the way these children cope with difficulties in acquiring basic literacy skills in their spoken language.