The purpose of this study was to formulate and conduct a needs assessment identifying which present factors may contribute to the implementation of a bilingual education program using Jamaican Sign Language and Jamaican Standard English (JEBE) at The Caribbean Christian Centre for the Deaf, a non-governmental school serving deaf children in…

Background: The aim of this study was to examine the degree to which children with intellectual disability (ID) depend on manual signs during their expressive vocabulary acquisition, in relation to child and social-environmental characteristics. Method: Expressive vocabulary acquisition in speech and manual signs was monitored over a 2-year period…

Deaf and hard of hearing children have shown delays and difficulties in pragmatic behaviors due to insufficient exposure to common daily discourse and underlying impoverishment in all components of language development. In a study in a school district in a southeastern U.S. state, the researchers investigated the relationship between…

This study aims to answer the question, how much of Spanish Sign Language interpreting deaf individuals really understand. Study sampling included 36 deaf people (deafness ranging from severe to profound; variety depending on the age at which they learned sign language) and 36 hearing people who had good knowledge of sign language (most were…

Hardness of hearing or deafness is the number one disability in the United States. The United States also has an extremely diverse population, including a growing Hispanic population. Based on these facts, physical educators need to find ways to help their students to overcome language and cultural barriers in order to ensure learning. One way to…

This paper contains three parts. In the first part, what it means to be bilingual in sign language and the spoken (majority) language is explained, and similarities as well as differences with hearing bilinguals are discussed. The second part examines the biculturalism of deaf people. Like hearing biculturals, they take part, to varying degrees,…

Kenya has 41 Deaf schools that serve children from Class 1 through secondary school. These schools are all characterised by the fact that they have very few teachers who are fluent in Kenyan sign language. In order to meet the needs of schools and to provide employment opportunities for Deaf Kenyan adults, a small non-governmental organisation…

Research has shown a prevalence of psychosocial difficulties ranging from about 20% to 50% among children with hearing loss. This study evaluates the prevalence of psychosocial difficulties in a Danish population in relation to different explanatory variables. Five scales and questionnaires measuring sign language, spoken language, hearing…

This article introduces the present collection of sign language planning studies. Contextualising the analyses against the backdrop of core issues in the theory of language planning and the evolution of applied sign linguistics, it is argued that--while the sociolinguistic circumstances of signed languages worldwide can, in many respects, be…

Events leading to the selection of Jane Fernandes as Gallaudet University's ninth president in May 2006 are described, as are protest-related activities that occurred subsequent to her selection. An explanation of these activities is offered, and some comparisons with the Deaf President Now protest of 1988 are made. (Contains 10 notes.)

This article looks at the linguistic landscape in two Northern Italian cities: Milan and Udine. Signs in two streets of a similar length were recorded and classified according to the language or languages they were written in. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence in the linguistic landscape of the different languages making up the…

Bimodal bilinguals are hearing individuals who know both a signed and a spoken language. Effects of bimodal bilingualism on behavior and brain organization are reviewed, and an fMRI investigation of the recognition of facial expressions by ASL-English bilinguals is reported. The fMRI results reveal separate effects of sign language and spoken…

For students with visual impairments, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become an important means through which they can learn and access learning materials at various levels of education. However, their learning experiences in using such form of technologies have been rarely documented, thus suggests society's lack of…

This study examined different perspectives of deaf education practitioners on deafness and reading comprehension. This involved a full deaf education support team comprising teachers of the deaf, communication support workers, and deaf instructors from a UK citywide service covering early years, primary and secondary settings. Using a focus group…

Paradigms serve as metaphysical frameworks that guide researchers in the identification and clarification of their beliefs with regard to ethics, reality, knowledge, and methodology. The transformative paradigm is explained and illustrated as a framework for researchers who place a priority on social justice and the furtherance of human rights.…