Past work investigating spatial cognition suggests better mental rotation abilities for those who are fluent in a signed language. However, no prior work has assessed whether fluency is needed to achieve this performance benefit or what it may look like on the neurobiological level. We conducted an electroencephalography experiment and assessed…

This article considers the implication of digital trends in Deaf historical scholarship. I argue that these methodological approaches hold great promise for fostering new interpretations of the historical record and for broadening access to resources. My digital history project, the Church Mission to Deaf-Mutes, 1873-1879, serves as a springboard…

This article investigates the sequential recall of manual alphabet letters by signing deaf adolescents under two presentation conditions: fingerspelling and the listing and ordering technique (LOT) of American Sign Language. Fingerspelling presents each letter in a manner similar to the spelling of spoken words: A letter is produced and then is no…

In this reply to Salverda (2016), we address a critique of the claims made in our recent study of real-time processing of American Sign Language (ASL) signs using a novel visual world eye-tracking paradigm (Lieberman, Borovsky, Hatrak, & Mayberry, 2015). Salverda asserts that our data do not support our conclusion that native signers and…

As science educators, one of our important responsibilities is ensuring students possess the proper tools and accommodations to examine phenomena in a laboratory setting. It is our job to innovate methods enabling students with disabilities to participate in all aspects of investigations. This article describes an experimental accommodation…

Numerous studies have shown that spelling presents unique challenges for children who are deaf or hard of hearing (d/hh), and most do not develop age appropriate spelling skills. Spelling errors from 29 middle school d/hh students were analyzed from writing samples that were gathered at the beginning, middle, and end of a year-long writing…

Inquiry-based active learning in science is helpful to all students but especially to those who have a hearing loss. For many deaf or hard of hearing students, the English language may be their second language, with American Sign Language (ASL) being their primary language. Therefore, many of the accommodations for the deaf are similar to those…

The author reviews research on working memory and short-term memory abilities of deaf individuals, delineating strengths and weaknesses. Among the areas of weakness that are reviewed are sequential recall, processing speed, attention, and memory load. Areas of strengths include free recall, visuospatial recall, imagery, and dual encoding.…

Given the visual-gestural nature of ASL it is reasonable to assume that visualization abilities may be one predictor of aptitude for learning ASL. This study tested a hypothesis that visualization abilities are a foundational aptitude for learning a signed language and that measurements of these skills will increase as students progress from…

This paper will review research on working memory and short-term memory abilities of deaf individuals delineating strengths and weaknesses. The areas of memory reviewed include weaknesses such as sequential recall, processing speed, attention, and memory load. Strengths include free recall, visuospatial recall, imagery and dual encoding.…

Three mental rotation tasks, the Card Rotation Task (CRT), the Vandenberg Mental Rotation Test (VMRT), and the Money Road-Map of Direction Sense (MRM), were administered to 60 deaf students from Gallaudet University to determine if mental rotation was predictive of scores on the ACT English or Math subtests. Other predictor variables, such as…

Research supported in part by grants 1484-S and 198-T from U.S. Rehabilitation Services Administration.

In this study of deaf high school students, imagery and familiarity were found to be the best predictors of geometry word recall, whereas neither concreteness nor signability of the terms was a significant predictor variable. Recall of high imagery terms was significantly better than for low imagery terms, and the same result was found for high-…

This study examined 40 deaf and 20 hearing adolescent students' free recall of visually presented words varied systematically with respect of signability (i.e., words that could be expressed by a single sign) and visual imagery. Results underline the importance of sign language in the memory and recall of deaf persons. (Author/PN)

Four groups of 12 young adult deaf subjects evaluated 2 aspects of lipreading training: source of video feedback (self or trainer) and timing of feedback (during or after speech production). Results substantiate the beneficial effects of multisensory feedback by practicing lipreading of one's own speech production. (Author/JDD)