Traditional classrooms are not being designed with deaf and hard of hearing learners in mind. Providing equal learning opportunities with the use of appropriate instructional design strategies to deaf and hard of hearing learners requires that instructional designers, faculty, and educational institutions understand what accommodations and…

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 article investigates the role of iconicity in International Sign Language (ISL), as used by interpreters for Deaf people at international conferences. In analyses of ISL, specific issues of iconicity (e.g., degree of abstractness, levels of application, competing motivations, and universality) are considered and applied to ISL data. The data…

In this article we describe an Australian project in which linguists, signed language interpreters, medical and health care professionals, and members of the Deaf community use the technology of the Internet to facilitate cooperative language development. A web-based, interactive multimedia lexicon, an encyclopedic dictionary, and a database of…

Our research sought to identify the most common movement patterns and postures performed by sign language interpreters and the frequency and severity of any pain that may be associated with the movements. A survey was developed and mailed to registered sign language interpreters throughout the state of Illinois. For each specific upper extremity…

Early shared reading experiences have been shown to benefit normally hearing children. It has been hypothesized that hearing parents of deaf or hard-of-hearing children may be uncomfortable or may lack adequate skills to engage in shared reading activities. A factor that may contribute to the widely cited reading difficulties seen in the majority…

This study analysed the role of knowledge management (KM) tools used to cultivate a community of practice (CP) in its knowledge creation (KC), transfer, learning processes. The goal of such observations was to determine requirements that KM tools should address for the specific CP formed by Deaf and non-Deaf members of the CP. The CP studied is a…

Thirty-two interpreters for the deaf were measured on accuracy and quality of voice interpreting of the same story in two different sign language types: Pidgin Signed English and American Sign Language. Results indicated that previous experience interpreting was significantly related to the effectiveness of voice interpreting both languages.…

The purpose of this study was to quantitatively examine the impact of third-party support service providers on the quality of science information available to deaf students in regular science classrooms. Three different videotapes that were developed by NASA for high school science classrooms were selected for the study, allowing for different…

The concept of recentering the Deaf community in interpreter education stems from the recent discussion of program evolution away from stakeholders and into academia highlighted by Monikowski and Peterson (2005). The University of North Florida, in the initial stages of developing a B.S. degree and M.Ed. concentration in ASL/English Interpreting,…

Objective: To survey the self-perceived capability of medically oriented child maltreatment teams in the US to provide mental health referrals and services when needed and to evaluate children with special health care needs (CSHCN). Methods: Mailed questionnaire with 5 items related to mental health, 12 items on services for CSHCN, and 28 items on…

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…

An interpreter's role is to facilitate communication and convey all auditory and signed information so that both hearing and deaf individuals may fully interact. The common types of services provided by interpreters are: (1) American Sign Language (ASL) Interpretation--a visual-gestural language with its own linguistic features; (2) Sign Language…

This article examines storytelling events for children in a library and a children's bookstore in which storytellers are accompanied by sign language interpreters. The result is that both hearing and Deaf children participate in a literacy event in which storyteller and interpreter produce a multilingual, multimodal and multimedial narrative.…

English language learners (ELLs) with disabilities are required to participate in all state and district assessments similar to their peers without disabilities. This includes assessments used for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Title I accountability purposes for demonstrating proficiency in academic content, assessments used…