American Sign Language Commons^™

Orthographic Representations In American Sign Language Fingerspelling, Zed Sehyr, Lauren Fillet, Kiana Billot-Vasquez, Emily Saunders, Karen Emmorey

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

This study examined fingerspelling accuracy and error patterns in deaf American Sign Language (ASL) signers and written spelling in hearing English speakers to investigate how orthographic representations are shaped by phonological, visual, and motor encoding strategies. Deaf participants (n = 39) completed a fingerspelling repetition task, while hearing participants (n = 35) completed a written dictation task using the same word and pseudoword stimuli. While overall accuracy did not differ significantly between groups, deaf participants exhibited qualitatively distinct error patterns, including higher rates of deletions and transpositions, compared to hearing participants who made more substitution errors. Deaf participants also produced …

Neural Associations Between Fingerspelling, Print, And Signs: An Erp Priming Study With Deaf Readers, Brittany Lee, Sofia E. Ortega, Priscilla M. Martinez, Katherine J. Midgley, Phillip J. Holcomb, Karen Emmorey

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Fingerspelling is a leading predictor of reading ability for deaf people who use a signed language, but few neuroimaging studies have examined how it supports reading. We used event-related potentials to investigate how fingerspelled words prime printed words. Twenty-four skilled deaf adult readers completed a Go/No-Go task while viewing printed English word targets following related and unrelated primes in one of three conditions: printed English words, American Sign Language (ASL) signs, and fingerspelled words. N400 priming effects were strong across all three conditions. Early N400 effects were similar for printed word primes and fingerspelled word primes, suggesting shared orthographic representations. …

Speech & Language Services: Examining The Experiences Of Deaf / Hard Of Hearing People, Milayna N. Barker

University Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (HoH) adults and parents of Deaf/HoH children related to speech and language services, and their recommendations for service providers. Historically, professionals have focused on the development of speech and aural/oral skills of Deaf and HoH people. As such, when working with families of newly-identified children with hearing loss, hearing professionals may be ill-equipped to provide culturally-responsive, fully inclusive information and education regarding communication options and opportunities.

Method: This study used a qualitative research design to examine participant experiences related to speech and language services …

The Deaf Experience In National Parks With An Emphasis On Rocky Mountain National Park, Madeline Dannewitz

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research investigated the experiences of Deaf visitors to the Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). The little research available focuses on how the National Park Service and its workers interact with Deaf people. Conversely, this study investigated the experiences of Deaf people and their perspective regarding interacting with the park and its members. A study regarding Deaf visitors in Yosemite National Park found that many were invisible to its employees. The desire from the Deaf community and lack of research shows the significance of this study. This analysis is crucial to the human experience as quality of life is improved …

The Critical Need For Early Language Access For Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Children, Kinya D. Embry-Wright

Theses and Dissertations--Rehabilitation Sciences

According to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are referred to as the experts of communication (ASHA, n.d.) utilizing their specialized training, extensive education, and clinical expertise to work with individuals across the lifespan with a variety of different speech and language delays, disorders, and deficits. However, when working with deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) children, there is often precedent given to speech and listening (M. L. Hall et al., 2019). For example, ASHA only recently updated their DHH portal to include American Sign Language (ASL), though they still list it on some webpages as an Augmentative …

Exploring Strategies For Modeling Sign Language Phonology, Lee Kezar, Riley Carlin, Tejas Srinivasan, Zed Sehyr, Naomi Caselli, Jesse Thomason

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Like speech, signs are composed of discrete, recombinable features called phonemes. Prior work shows that models which can recognize phonemes are better at sign recognition, motivating deeper exploration into strategies for modeling sign language phonemes. In this work, we learn graph convolution networks to recognize the sixteen phoneme “types” found in ASL-LEX 2.0. Specifically, we explore how learning strategies like multi-task and curriculum learning can leverage mutually useful information between phoneme types to facilitate better modeling of sign language phonemes. Results on the Sem-Lex Benchmark show that curriculum learning yields an average accuracy of 87% across all phoneme types, outperforming …

Exploring Tactile Art-Making With Deafblind Students And Their Families: An Opportunity For Creative Play, Alice Rodgers

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The impact of a deafblind diagnosis on an individual’s mental health and the well-being of the family involved can be profound. However, current research and available literature for the mental health treatment and therapy practices of deafblind persons and their families is limited (Kyzar et al., 2016; “WFDB Global Report 2018,” n.d.). This thesis used the Leeds Family Psychology and Therapy Service principles (Leeds FPTS) and the Expressive Therapies Continuum with established deafblind teaching strategies to facilitate an original arts-based community project entitled: “Things We Like.” This project provided an opportunity for deafblind students (ages three to 22) and their …

Stuck On The Tip Of My Thumb: Stuttering In American Sign Language, Geoffrey Whitebread

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

This thesis aims to stimulate research on articulation disorders in American Sign Language. It discusses the controversy surrounding a clinical definition of stuttering, reviews the symptoms of stuttering in spoken languages, and examines theories of the etiology of stuttering. Ten well-connected individuals in the Deaf community were interviewed and presented a list of possible symptoms of stuttering in American Sign Language (ASL). (As a preliminary investigation, this study did not attempt to directly observe any stuttering in ASL.) Participants responded with how they thought symptoms might look in ASL and whether they had seen examples in real life. A refined …

Increasing Staff Use Of Sign Language, Melanie Hepworth Neville

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effectiveness of two procedures, a visual cue and performance posting, to modify the use of sign language by psychiatric technicians. The visual cue was first introduced alone, then paired with performance posting to encourage staff use of sign language with the developmentally disabled children in their charge. Application of the visual cue alone produced little change in staff sign useage. The visual cue plus performance posting condition increased staff use of sign language during mealtimes. Four weeks of follow-up data indicated that the use of sign language remained at a level well above baseline.