COMD News

from Memory

Abstract
To examine the impact of early linguistic experiences on later verbal report of autobiographical memory, 13 hearing adults and 13 deaf adults born to hearing parents described events that occurred before and after the age of 10 years. The contextual, temporal, and thematic coherence of the narratives was rated. The use of emotional, perceptual, mental, and physiological states was also recorded. There were differences in the coherence of the narratives and use of internal states according to the age at which the events occurred. There were no group differences in coherence, but hearing adults provided longer narratives than deaf adults. When narrative length was controlled, deaf adults included more emotional states than hearing adults. Results suggest that early unavailability of language does not impact the coherence of adults’ narratives, although certain features of linguistic expression specific to ASL may result in greater saturation of emotional states references in autobiographical narratives of deaf adults.

from Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics

The influence of the mother tongue on vowel productions in infancy is different for deaf and hearing babies. Audio material of five hearing and five deaf infants acquiring Dutch was collected monthly from month 5-18, and at 24 months. Fifty unlabelled utterances were digitized for each recording. This study focused on developmental paths in vowel productions. The applied automated band filtering analysis is F 0-independent and results in a spectral envelope, sampled in a 40-dimensional space. Via a Principal Component Analysis (PCA, data reduction), a vowel space for normally hearing 2-year-olds was constructed, enabling the projection of the individual developmental data of the infants in a two-dimensional reference plane. Comparison of the results for the hearing and the deaf infants over 2 years indicates individual as well as group differences. The amount of hearing loss as well as the communication styles seem to be important factors in explaining differences between the infant categories.

from EurekAlert.org

British parents are to be quizzed about their children’s sex education in a unique study that hopes to improve the way the subject is taught to deaf pupils.

from Deafness and Education International

Abstract
This study investigates the personal communication memories and experiences of adult deaf people during their childhoods in their homes. In order to obtain relevant information in depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty four Cypriot deaf individuals between the ages of 19 to 54 years with different family and school backgrounds. Those who graduated from the school for the deaf, and used sign language from an early age had negative communication experiences at home. It was found that they could not achieve communication either in CSL or orally with their hearing parents (n = 12). On the other hand, those participants who graduated from general schools did not record any negative memories, since they could communicate from an early age with their hearing parents through speech (n = 10). Similarly, the two participants, who attended the school for the deaf, and signed with their family Deaf members from an early age, described pleasant communication memories. This study suggests the importance of an early and mutual mode of communication between family members and the deaf children, regardless the communication modality to ensure pleasant family communication interchanges and experiences. This could be taken into consideration by people involved in deaf education, including service providers, educators, parents, and counselors. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

from the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology

Purpose: The major purpose of this study was to provide information about expected spoken language skills of preschool-age children who are deaf and who use a cochlear implant. A goal was to provide “benchmarks” against which those skills could be compared, for a given age at implantation. We also examined whether parent-completed checklists of children’s language were correlated with results of standardized language tests and whether scores increased linearly with decreasing age of implantation and increasing duration of cochlear implant use.

Method: Participants were a nationwide sample of 76 children who were deaf and orally educated and who received an implant by 38 months of age. Formal language tests were administered at age 4.5 years. The MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) instrument was completed by parents when children were ages 3.5 and 4.5 years.

Results: Based on regression analyses, expected scores for each age at implant were provided for 2 commonly administered language tests at 4.5 years of age and CDI subscale scores at 3.5 and 4.5 years. Concurrent test scores were significantly correlated on all measures. A linear relation was found that predicted increasing test scores with younger ages at implantation for all scales administered.

Conclusions: While the expected scores reported here should not be considered as normative data, they are benchmarks that may be useful for evaluating spoken language progress of children with cochlear implants who are enrolled in spoken language–based programs.

from EurekAlert.org

Deaf people on trial were granted the right to an interpreter as early as 1725, according to Old Bailey records examined by UCL (University College London) scientists. The use of family and friends to interpret court proceedings later switched to deaf teachers and eventually written testimony, which may have disadvantaged the less educated ‘deaf and dumb’ at the very time that British Sign Language was emerging.

The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Sign Language Studies, charts the history of signing and interpreting in court proceedings pulled from Old Bailey records online. UCL researchers examined 30 trials in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries where the defendant or a key witness was deaf or dumb.

from the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

Four experiments investigated classroom learning by deaf college students receiving lectures from instructors signing for themselves or using interpreters. Deaf students’ prior content knowledge, scores on postlecture assessments of content learning, and gain scores were compared to those of hearing classmates. Consistent with prior research, deaf students, on average, came into and left the classroom with less content knowledge than hearing peers, and use of simultaneous communication (sign and speech together) and American Sign Language (ASL) apparently were equally effective for deaf students’ learning of the material. Students’ self-rated sign language skills were not significantly related to performance. Two new findings were of particular importance. First, direct and mediated instruction (via interpreting) were equally effective for deaf college students under the several conditions employed here. Second, despite coming into the classroom with the disadvantage of having less content knowledge, deaf students’ gain scores generally did not differ from those of their hearing peers. Possible explanations for these findings are considered.

from the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology

PURPOSE: The major purpose of this study was to provide information about expected spoken language skills of preschool-age children who are deaf and who use a cochlear implant. A goal was to provide “benchmarks” against which those skills could be compared, for a given age at implantation. We also examined whether parent-completed checklists of children’s language were correlated with results of standardized language tests and whether scores increased linearly with decreasing age of implantation and increasing duration of cochlear implant use. METHOD: Participants were a nationwide sample of 76 children who were deaf and orally educated and who received an implant by 38 months of age. Formal language tests were administered at age 4.5 years. The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) instrument was completed by parents when children were ages 3.5 and 4.5 years. RESULTS: Based on regression analyses, expected scores for each age at implant were provided for 2 commonly administered language tests at 4.5 years of age and CDI subscale scores at 3.5 and 4.5 years. Concurrent test scores were significantly correlated on all measures. A linear relation was found that predicted increasing test scores with younger ages at implantation for all scales administered. CONCLUSIONS: While the expected scores reported here should not be considered as normative data, they are benchmarks that may be useful for evaluating spoken language progress of children with cochlear implants who are enrolled in spoken language-based programs.

from Medical News Today.com

Deaf Child Worldwide, the only UK-based international development agency dedicated to enabling deaf children to overcome poverty and isolation, has launched a new action learning resource to help organisations working with deaf children and families throughout the world.

from Language Learning

Deaf and hearing students’ knowledge of English sentences containing universal quantifiers was compared through their performance on a 50-item, multiple-picture task that required students to decide whether each of five pictures represented a possible meaning of a target sentence. The task assessed fundamental knowledge of quantifier sentences, recognition of quantifier sentence ambiguity, and preferences for specific sentence interpretations. Results revealed that deaf learners at middle school, high school, and college levels of education understand the fundamental meaning of universal quantifier sentences but differ in certain aspects from hearing native speakers in their preferred interpretations. Differences between deaf and hearing learners are explained in terms of economy principles associated with minimalism and aspects of semantic complexity. The findings contribute to our understanding of language acquisition under conditions of restricted access to spoken language input as well as to language acquisition generally.

from the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

The internal use of language during problem solving is considered to play a key role in executive functioning. This role provides a means for self-reflection and self-questioning during the formation of rules and plans and a capacity to control and monitor behavior during problem-solving activity. Given that increasingly sophisticated language is required for effective executive functioning as an individual matures, it is likely that students with poor language abilities will have difficulties performing complex problem-solving tasks. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between language ability and verbal and nonverbal executive functioning in a group of deaf students who communicate using spoken English, as measured by their performance on two standardized tests of executive function: the Delis–Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) 20 Questions Test and the D-KEFS Tower Test. Expressive language ability accounted for more than 40% of variability in performance on the D-KEFS 20 Questions Test. There was no significant relationship between language ability and performance on the D-KEFS Tower Test. There was no relationship between language ability and familiarity with the specific problem-solving strategies of both D-KEFS Tests. Implications of the findings are discussed.

from Acta Oto-Laryngologica

Conclusion. Cochlear implantation (CI) remains a safe procedure with a low complication rate. Nevertheless, advances in surgical techniques and the optimization of treatment modalities would further reduce complications. Objective. To assess the complications of CI and describe the management of each complication encountered at our hospital. Patients and methods. This study involved 720 patients that underwent implantation from November 1988 through April 2007. Mean age at implantation was 13.6 years (range 12 months to 83 years). Patients were followed up regularly with a mean follow-up of 42 months (range 4-81 months). Results. No death was attributed to device implantation. Major complications included: device failure in 12 patients, misplaced electrodes in 4, hematoma in 3, flap necrosis in 3, magnet displacement in 2, facial nerve twitching in 2, electrode exposure in 2, external auditory canal keratoma in 1, immediate facial nerve paralysis in 1, and skin flap irritation due to the suture material in 1. The overall major complication rate was 4.2% (30/720), and there were 37 minor complications (5.1%), which were resolved by conservative treatment or minor intervention. Minor complications included temporary vertigo in 17 patients, facial twitching in 11, hematoma in 4, subcutaneous emphysema in 3, and temporary facial nerve paralysis in 2.

from the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

Caption rate and text reduction are factors that appear to affect the comprehension of captions by people who are deaf or hard of hearing. These 2 factors are confounded in everyday captioning; rate (in words per minute) is slowed by text reduction. In this study, caption rate and text reduction were manipulated independently in 2 experiments to assess any differential effects and possible benefits for comprehension by deaf and hard-of-hearing adults. Volunteers for the study included adults with a range of reading levels, self-reported hearing status, and different communication and language preferences. Results indicate that caption rate (at 130, 180, 230 words per minute) and text reduction (at 84%, 92%, and 100% original text) have different effects for different adult users, depending on hearing status, age, and reading level. In particular, reading level emerges as a dominant factor: more proficient readers show better comprehension than poor readers and are better able to benefit from caption rate and, to some extent, text reduction modifications.

from Disability & Society

Prior to the formation of schools for the deaf in America in the early 19th century, with rare exceptions, deaf people lived under largely solitary conditions. After the formation of such schools they became a community with their own language, organizations and cultural traditions. Several social theorists have proffered various descriptions of the American deaf community. Prior studies have described the American deaf community in medical, disability and cultural terms, tied those to institutional stakeholders and posited no impact by historical changes. I argue that the various descriptions are shaped by epistemes, or social thought, and transformations in epistemes generate changes in descriptions. From 1830 to 2000 there were three major epistemes in American intellectual history. They are romanticism in the first half of the 19th century, modernism in the period from the second half of 19th century to the first half of the 20th century and postmodernism since the mid 20th century.

from the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

This article explores the use of constructionist therapy with a reflecting team of hearing therapists seeing deaf clients. Using findings from two in-depth interviews, postsession reflections and a review of the literature, we propose that this model has the potential to cater to the diversity of the lived experiences of deaf people and also to address issues of power and tensions between medical, social, and cultural models of deafness. The interviews found there was real value in sharing multiple perspectives between the reflecting team of hearing therapists and these deaf clients. In addition, the clients reported feeling safe and comfortable with this model of counseling. Other information that emerged from the interviews supports previous findings regarding consistency in interpreting and the importance of hearing therapists having an understanding of the distinctions between Deaf and hearing worlds. As the first investigation of its kind in Australia, this article provides a map for therapists to incorporate reflecting teams with interpreters, deaf clients, and hearing therapists. The value of this article also lies in providing a much needed platform for future research into counseling outcomes and the efficacy of this constructionist model of therapy.

from the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

Visual phonics, a system of 45 hand and symbol cues that represent the phonemes of spoken English, has been used as a tool in literacy instruction with deaf/hard-of-hearing (DHH) students for over 20 years. Despite years of anecdotal support, there is relatively little published evidence of its impact on reading achievement. This study was designed to examine the relationship between performance on a phonological awareness task, performance on a decoding task, reading ability, and length of time in literacy instruction with visual phonics for 10 DHH kindergarten through Grade 3 students receiving academic instruction with sign-supported English and American Sign Language. Findings indicate that these students were able to use phonological information to make rhyme judgments and to decode; however, no relationship between performance on reading ability and length of time in literacy instruction with visual phonics was found.

from News-Medical.net

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) and the Law Offices of Matthew W. Dietz, P.L., filed two complaints in the United States District Court in Miami, Florida, against the City of Hialeah, Florida, and Palmetto General Hospital alleging their failure to provide qualified sign language interpreter services to ensure effective communication with Cynthia Cuevas and Erik Phillips, a deaf couple.

from News-Medical.net

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) has settled a complaint, filed with the United States Department of Justice, against a company that provides behavioral counseling and psychological services for children with autism spectrum disorders, challenging behavior and related developmental disabilities. The complaint alleged that the company refused to provide services for a hearing child because his parents are deaf, a violation of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

from the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

Sixty deaf and hearing students were asked to search for goods in a Hypertext Supermarket with either graphical or textual links of high typicality, frequency, and familiarity. Additionally, they performed a picture and word categorization task and two working memory span tasks (spatial and verbal). Results showed that deaf students were faster in graphical than in verbal hypertext when the number of visited pages per search trial was blocked. Regardless of stimuli format, accuracy differences between groups did not appear, although deaf students were slower than hearing students in both Web search and categorization tasks (graphical or verbal). No relation between the two tasks was found. Correlation analyses showed that deaf students with higher spatial span were faster in graphical Web search, but no correlations emerged between verbal span and verbal Web search. A hypothesis of different strategies used by the two groups for searching information in hypertext is formulated. It is suggested that deaf users use a visual-matching strategy more than a semantic approach to make navigation decisions.

from the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

This article examines the role of mode of acquisition (MoA) of word meanings in reading comprehension: children acquire word meanings using perceptual information (e.g., hearing, seeing, or smelling the referent) and/or linguistic information (e.g., verbal explanations). A total of 72 deaf and 99 hearing children between 7 and 15 years of age performed a self-paced reading task. Comprehension scores increased with age in both groups, but reading speed increased over age only for the hearing participants. For both groups, reading times on linguistically acquired words were longer than on perceptually acquired words. Although deaf children scored lower than hearing children in both conditions, comprehension scores for both groups were lower on linguistic items than on perceptual items. Thus, MoA influences reading comprehension, but the deaf show difficulty on both the perceptual and the linguistic items.

from the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

The acquisition of reading vocabulary is one of the major challenges for deaf children in bilingual education programs. Deaf children have to acquire a written lexicon that can effectively be used in reading. In this paper, we present a developmental model that describes reading vocabulary acquisition of deaf children in bilingual education programs. The model is inspired by Jiang’s model of vocabulary development in a second language (N. Jiang, 2000, 2004a) and the hierarchical model of lexical representation and processing in bilinguals (J. F. Kroll & E. Stewart, 1988). We argue that lexical development in the written language often fossilizes and that many words deaf readers acquire will not reach the final stage of lexical development. We argue that this feature is consistent with many findings reported in the literature. Finally, we discuss the pedagogical implications of the model.

from the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

Early developmental psychologists viewed iconic representation as cognitively less complex than other forms of symbolic thought. It is therefore surprising that iconic signs are not acquired more easily than arbitrary signs by young language learners. One explanation is that children younger than 3 years have difficulty interpreting iconicity. The current study assessed hearing children’s ability to interpret the meaning of iconic signs. Sixty-six 2.5- to 5-year-olds who had no previous exposure to signs were required to match iconic signs to pictures of referents. Whereas few of the 2.5-year-olds recognized the meaning of the iconic signs consistently, more than half of the 3.0-year-olds and most of 3.5-year-olds performed above chance. Thus, the ability to recognize the meaning of iconic signs gradually develops during the preschool years. Implications of these findings for sign language development, receptive signed vocabulary tests, and the development of the ability to interpret iconic symbols are discussed.

from the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

This article reports the findings of balanced and interactive writing instruction used with 16 deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Although the instruction has been used previously, this was the first time it had been modified to suit the specific needs of deaf children and the first time it had been implemented with this subpopulation of students. The intervention took place in two elementary classrooms (N = and one middle school classroom (N = for a total of 21 days. A comparison of pre- and posttest scores on both writing and reading measures evidenced that students made significant gains with use of genre-specific traits, use of contextual language, editing/revising skills, and word identification. Students showed neither gains nor losses with conventions and total word count. In addition, a one-way multiple analysis of variance was used to detect any school-level effects. Elementary students made significantly greater gains with respect to conventions and word identification, and middle school students made significantly greater gains with editing and revising tasks.

from the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

This article reports the findings of balanced and interactive writing instruction used with 16 deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Although the instruction has been used previously, this was the first time it had been modified to suit the specific needs of deaf children and the first time it had been implemented with this subpopulation of students. The intervention took place in two elementary classrooms (N = and one middle school classroom (N = for a total of 21 days. A comparison of pre- and posttest scores on both writing and reading measures evidenced that students made significant gains with use of genre-specific traits, use of contextual language, editing/revising skills, and word identification. Students showed neither gains nor losses with conventions and total word count. In addition, a one-way multiple analysis of variance was used to detect any school-level effects. Elementary students made significantly greater gains with respect to conventions and word identification, and middle school students made significantly greater gains with editing and revising tasks.

from the European Journal of Special Needs Education

This paper reports the results of a study which has been carried out for the first time in Cyprus, with the aim of exploring the views of deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/HH) children (who attend secondary general schools, and use an auditory/oral approach), as well as the perceptions of their parents, teachers and head teachers on their academic and social inclusion. For the purposes of this study, four questionnaires were designed to be administered to all D/HH children attending secondary general schools (n = 69), as well as to their parents (n = 61), to their teachers (n = 367) and to their head teachers (n = 34) with a view to investigating their perceptions on inclusion. The data were analysed statistically and they revealed that the majority of the D/HH children had been included well socially and had achieved a reasonable academic standard. Our study also brought out that the D/HH children’s communicative skills were positively related to their academic and social inclusion. It was shown that D/HH children’s academic inclusion has been facilitated by a number of resources provided, the most important being pre-tutoring sessions, in-service training provided for designated teachers, and modification of normal classroom delivery. Deaf awareness of hearing children and general teachers were also found to be positively related with D/HH children’s social inclusion.

from the National Library for Medicines (NLM)

from the National Library for Medicines (NLM)

from the National Library for Medicines (NLM)

• Course Fee: £95
• Where:Manchester
• When:27 Feb 2008 10:00 - 16:30

The aim of the local Children’s Hearing Services Working Groups (CHSWG), are to ensure that all services designed to support deaf children and their families work in a co-ordinated way. Each group includes representatives from Health, Education, Social Services, the local voluntary sector and parents of deaf children.

This one day course will explore how this can be best achieved for all participants and representatives within a local context:

• What is a CHSWG? (scope and remit, aims and objectives; terms of reference, reporting and accountability)
• Setting up and developing a functional CHSWG
• Leadership and management
• Involving parents as equal partners
• Examples of effective CHSWGs
• CHSWGs as a vehicle for facilitating multi-agency development and family friendly practice.

For further information contact:

Ailsa Johnson

NHSP Training and Consultancy Administrator

MRC Hearing & Communication Group

School of Psychological Sciences

University of Manchester

Ellen Wilkinson Building, Block A Level 3

Oxford Road

Manchester

M13 9PL

from the National Library for Medicines (NLM)

• Where: Manchester
• When: 22 Apr 2008 10:00 - 16:30

For further information contact:

Ailsa Johnson

NHSP Training and Consultancy Administrator

MRC Hearing & Communication Group

School of Psychological Sciences

University of Manchester

Ellen Wilkinson Building, Block A Level 3

Oxford Road

Manchester

M13 9PL

from the National Library for Medicines (NLM)

Day 2 of 2-day course, but participants may attend one or both days

For further information contact:

Frances McMenemy

Tel: 01635 573820

e-mail: training@maryhare.org.uk

Where: Newbury
When: 07 Mar 2008 10:00 - 16:30