The "unskilled and unaware effect" refers to the finding that individuals who are less knowledgeable or less skilled in a domain are relatively less able to evaluate their level of skill or effectively utilise feedback relative to individuals who are more skilled. Studies finding deaf students less accurate than hearing students in…

Deaf people use visual language and communication strategies naturally. Moreover, hearing people (both young children and adults) can also benefit from sign language and the visual strategies that deaf parents and teachers use with young children, an example of deaf gain. This paper will provide an overview of the concept of deaf gain, review…

Deaf children of hearing parents (DOH) are at risk for early language delays (ELD) due to environmental and etiological factors, compounding the previously reported higher incidence of ELD in deaf children of deaf parents (DOD) compared to the general population. Archival data from the online database of the Visual Communication and Sign Language…

Progress monitoring is used to assess a student's performance during the early stages of literacy development. Computerized progress monitoring systems are capable of scoring some progress monitoring measures automatically. However, other measures, such as those involving writing or sign language, are typically scored manually, which is…

Nonsigners viewing sign language are sometimes able to guess the meaning of signs by relying on the overt connection between form and meaning, or iconicity (cf. Ortega, Özyürek, & Peeters, 2020; Strickland et al., 2015). One word class in sign languages that appears to be highly iconic is classifiers: verb-like signs that can refer to location…

Purpose: The main objective of this article is to contribute to the field of accessibility in the teaching of sign language in the international panorama, examining its applicability, evaluation methods as well as the assistive technologies used to improve teaching experiences and the creation of new materials, proposing a theoretical framework…

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…

Social abilities relate to performance on visual-spatial perspective-taking (VSPT) tasks for hearing nonsigners but may relate differently to VSPT abilities for deaf signers because of their distinct linguistic and social experiences. This research investigated whether deaf adults approach VSPT tasks nonsocially (as previously suggested for deaf…

Background: Children and adults with developmental disability frequently require either aided or unaided alternative and augmentative communication (AAC). Key word sign (KWS) involves using natural gesture and sign language to support the key words in spoken utterances. The purpose of this study was to determine whether communication partners of…

This small-scale, qualitative study invited deaf adults to reflect on their schooling and to consider the ways in which placement decisions impacted their educational opportunities, achievement and identity. It aimed to document the experiences of deaf adults who had attended special schools for deaf children and to elicit their thoughts on the…

The study asked whether Deaf mothers seek to exploit the iconicity in signed languages to facilitate their infants' word learning. Two longitudinal case studies followed modifications that 2 Deaf mothers applied to their input while interacting with their hearing infants. Both mothers were sensitive to the communicative abilities of their infants…

As spatial languages, sign languages rely on spatial cognitive processes that are not involved for spoken languages. Interlocutors have different visual perspectives of the signer's hands requiring a mental transformation for successful communication about spatial scenes. It is unknown whether visual-spatial perspective-taking (VSPT) or mental…

This article describes one family's journey with their child, Teresa, who was diagnosed with a mild-to-moderate hearing loss in her left ear and a condition known as hypotonia shortly after birth. Through the course of several tests and diagnoses over the years, Teresa was diagnosed as deaf-blind. After Teresa's needs outgrew what Maryland School…

Lexical iconicity--signs or words that resemble their meaning--is overrepresented in children's early vocabularies. Embodied theories of language acquisition predict that symbols are more learnable when they are grounded in a child's firsthand experiences. As such, pantomimic iconic signs, which use the signer's body to represent a body, might be…

Beliefs about disability play an enormous role in shaping parents' decisions about the education of their children with disabilities. Using the Beliefs and Attitudes about Deaf Education Scale, we examine attitudinal differences between Hispanic and non-Hispanic parents. We hypothesize that perceptions of disability among Hispanic parents orient…