Education Commons^™

American Sign Language Interpreting For D/Deaf Individuals With Disabilities: A Qualitative Study And Practical Guide, Emily Mason

Senior Honors Theses

American Sign Language (ASL) interpreting for d/Deaf individuals with disabilities (DWD) is a complex task, and one which lacks an adequate research-base to inform best practices. Using the foundation of existing literature on closely related topics such as the field of ASL interpreting, educational interpreting, education of DWD individuals, and research about specific disabilities occurring with d/Deafness, I compiled a literature review and created a theoretical conceptual framework concerning this topic. In further investigation of this subject, I also conducted a qualitative study through online questionnaires sent out by email to ASL interpreters located through snowball sampling. The data collected …

Using American Sign Language To Support Sight Word Acquisition In English Learners, Kaitlin A. Woodrow, Susan Keesey, Christina Noel

Kentucky Teacher Education Journal: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Kentucky Council for Exceptional Children

English Learners constitute a growing, and important, portion of our school communities, yet the research base regarding evidence-based practices to support effective instruction for English Learners is minimal, especially for those with disabilities. American Sign Language has effectively supplemented curriculum for different student populations, but there has been little research on how sign language can be used to teach English Learners. Sight word acquisition is often a challenge for English Learners so this alternating treatment, single subject research design explored if adding American Sign Language to sight word instruction of first grade English Learners would increase learning of sight words …

Utilizing American Sign Language In The Early Childhood Setting, Samantha Hakim

Graduate Student Independent Studies

Explores the benefits of using American Sign Language (ASL) in a general education classroom as a tool for classroom management, as well as a way to create an inclusive setting for deaf and hearing impaired children.

Deaf Children’S Science Content Learning In Direct Instruction Versus Interpreted Instruction, Kim B. Kurz, Brenda Schick, Peter C. Hauser

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

This research study compared learning of 6-9th grade deaf students under two modes of educational delivery – interpreted vs. direct instruction using science lessons. Nineteen deaf students participated in the study in which they were taught six science lessons in American Sign Language. In one condition, the lessons were taught by a hearing teacher in English and were translated in ASL via a professional and certified interpreter. In the second condition, the lessons were taught to the students in ASL by a deaf teacher. All students saw three lessons delivered via an interpreter and three different lessons in direct ASL; …

American Sign Language Curriculum And Materials, Michelle Grace Swaney

Masters Theses

American Sign Language (ASL) began to gain widespread acceptance as a foreign language in the 1990s, but instruction, programming, teaching and learning are still in the process of developing and transitioning into a mature field. This thesis study is designed to assess: perceived gaps in current ASL curriculum utilized for ASL 1-6, how and to what extent curriculum is supplemented by instructors in these courses, and how ASL lab is implemented and to what extent supplemental materials are needed. This information will help guide future development of instructional materials that follow the American Council of the Teaching of Foreign Languages …

An Alternative View Of Education For Deaf Children: Part Ii, Lil Brannon, Sue Livingston

Publications and Research

How might deaf children acquire one of the primary goals of education literacy in English? This article suggests that literacy in English as well as knowledge of the English language can be acquired concomitantly through developmental reading and writing activities that reflect principles of first language acquisition if students bring to these activities relatable experiences which they have already linguistically represented. Such activities engage students in reading and writing where content and context support them in their attempts to actively understand and convey meaning in English. The end product of, rather than the prerequisite for, this meaningful reading and writing …

An Alternative View Of Education For Deaf Children: Part I, Sue Livingston

Publications and Research

Quigley and Kretschmer (1982) asserted that the primary goal of education for deaf children should be literacy in English. This article presents an alternative view that there be two primary goals: (a) thinking and learning through the development of meaning-making and meaning-sharing capacities and (b) the acquisition of literacy in English. In this article, the first of these goals is viewed as the more fundamental since it facilitates the acquisition of knowledge while it simultaneously serves as the prerequisite for the acquisition of literacy in English. Because neither direct language instruction nor the exclusive use of English in sign will …

Levels Of Development In The Language Of Deaf Children: Asl Grammatical Processes, Signed English Structures, Semantic Features, Sue Livingston

Publications and Research

This study describes the spontaneous sign language of six deaf children (6 to 16 years old) of hearing parents, who were exposed to Signed English when after the age of six they first attended a school for the deaf. Samples of their language taken at three times over a 15-month period were searched for processes and structures representative or not representative of Signed English. The nature of their developing semantics was described as the systematic acquisition of features of meaning in signs from selected lexical categories (kinship terms, negation, time expression, wh-questions, descriptive terms, and prepositions/conjunctions).

Processes not representative of …