Research over the past two decades has reported a robust relationship between relative social status and first-person singular (FPS) pronoun use in English. For my dissertation study, I wanted to test the replicability of those findings using American Sign Language (ASL) data that I collected for this purpose. In alignment with previous work, I…

Recommendations for achieving generalized instructional outcomes often overlook the capacity for generative learning. We sought to demonstrate how decontextualized and logically organized instruction would lead to derived and contextually appropriate recombinative generalization and arbitrarily applicable relational responding (AARRing) in…

The influence of sign language comprehension on reading has been well-documented in elementary, secondary, and postsecondary-aged deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/HOH) children and adults. There is limited research into the predictive nature of sign language comprehension on literacy outcomes in D/HOH children in preschool and early elementary school,…

Online learning has grown substantially in recent years, and there has been an emphasis among administrators, instructors, and researchers alike to better understand what drives student success in their online courses. Success in online learning is also a concern for deaf students, who face unique challenges in online courses. This survey-based…

This case study explores the relationship between teachers' language knowledge and their grammar teaching practices within the context of a bilingual school for the deaf in Sweden, a country that has demonstrated success in educating deaf children bilingually in written Swedish and Sweden's signed language. The study's participants were two…

The purpose of this study was to analyze attitudes and perspectives of university students towards D/deafness before and after studying American Sign Language, ASL, and to determine if any relationship between them exists. A double pre-test quasi-experiment design was used with participants who were students enrolled in a basic ASL course at a…

Bilinguals sometimes outperform age-matched monolinguals on non-language tasks involving cognitive control. But the bilingual advantage is not consistently found in every experiment and may reflect specific attributes of the bilinguals tested. The goal of this dissertation was to determine if the way in which bilinguals use language, specifically…

The current phenomenological case study, based in part on Vygotsky's sociocultural theory, set out to examine the lived experiences of individuals sharing and mediating meaningful communication with individuals who have Down syndrome. To accomplish this, the researcher interviewed several categories of caregivers who regularly interact with…

American Sign Language (ASL)-English interpreting education, which began as a community apprenticeship and vetting process, has within the last several decades moved into higher education. Most recently, the number of baccalaureate-granting ASL-English interpreting programs have continued to increase while the number of associate's degree…

American Sign Language (ASL) is ranked fourth among heritage languages taken by students in the United States. The number of ASL classes offered at the K-12 and Institutions of Higher Education are on the rise, yet the number of certified ASL teachers remains stagnant. This study examines the reasons why American Sign Language teachers choose to…

This study evaluated employment outcomes of adults who were deaf and hard of hearing. The 200 subjects were deaf and hard of hearing adults 18 years and older. They completed a survey consisting of 20 multiple choice questions and three additional questions that required written responses. The results indicated there were significant associations…

This is a dissertation study focusing on the ability of deaf children to fast map common and newly learned novel fingerspelled words through a training task. It also explored the relationship between the ability to learn fingerspelled words and the children's reading and vocabulary skills. Learning was assessed using five domains: imitation,…

The purpose of this study was to examine the behavioral and demographic characteristics of deaf males enrolled at state school for the Deaf. An analysis of student, family, and educational variables was conducted in order to provide a composite description of both the type and frequency of the offenses and of the offender. Participants were 90…