The communication skills used by deaf children and their hearing peers in a question-and-answer game context

Communication is frequently characterized by a sequence of questions and answers. Little is known about how well students who are deaf or hard of hearing (deaf/HH) understand their hearing classmates in the context of an inclusive setting. This study explored the communication skills used by deaf/HH children when asking and answering questions in a “trivia” game with their hearing peers. Thirty-four children with normal hearing and 34 children with a hearing loss ranging from mild to profound (>90 dB HL) participated in this study. Each of the 34 dyads included 1 child with normal hearing and 1 child with hearing loss, matched by gender and grade level at school. Dyads were videotaped and analyzed. Pairs were compared in terms of their capacity to repeat the question, strategies used to seek information, and accuracy of responses. Results showed that the group of hearing children was able to repeat more questions verbatim compared to the deaf/HH children. The deaf/HH group required a significantly greater number of repetitions, sought a greater number of general clarifications, and correctly answered more questions compared with the group of hearing children. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of peer communication and pragmatic skill development.

Spoken language and speech perception abilities in deaf children

Despite early diagnosis, early fitting of more advanced sensory aids, early intervention, and intensive educational management, many children with severe to profound hearing loss are delayed in their acquisition of spoken language compared with their peers with normal hearing. More...Some of the greatest challenges facing educators of deaf children include determining where to focus intervention in order to maximise benefit, and establishing the most effective strategies for the development of age-appropriate language. The experimental research in this book examined the relationship between hearing, speech production, and vocabulary knowledge, and investigated the contributions of these factors to the overall speech perception performance of deaf children. This research also investigated the areas in which intervention would be most beneficial, and examined the effects of different types of intervention on the development of spoken language and speech perception skills in deaf children. The evaluation, analysis and intervention methods reported in this book provide an experimentally validated program for improving speech perception, speech production and spoken language skills of deaf children.

Investigating question types used in conversation between school-aged deaf children and their peers.

Children learn about turn-taking and develop sensitivity to conversational partners. Anecdotal reports suggest that children who are D/HH may have difficulties with some pragmatic skills that lead to difficulties interacting with hearing children. This study investigated the conversational skills of children with hearing loss who use spoken language when communicating with their hearing peers. A comparison of the conversational skills of children who are D/HH conversing with hearing peers with the conversational skills of hearing dyads was conducted. Specifically, this paper will present results relating to how each dyad member asked questions including question types, question purpose, and the role of questions in conversation.

A comparison of pragmatic abilities of children who are deaf or hard of hearing and their hearing peers

Pragmatic skills are the key to a satisfying and sustained conversation. Such conversation is critical for the development of meaningful friendships. Previous studies have investigated the conversational skills of deaf children while interacting with adults or when interacting with peers in structured referential tasks. There are few published studies that have compared the pragmatic skills of children who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) in free conversation with their hearing peers. In this study, the conversational skills of 31 children who are D/HH when interacting with a hearing friend were compared with those of 31 pairs of hearing children. Findings suggest that school-aged children (Years 3–6 of study; aged 8–12 years) who are D/HH have a wide range of pragmatic skills that they use effectively when conversing with their hearing peers. Specifically, these children asked more questions, made more personal comments, initiated more topics, and took longer turns in their conversations with a hearing friend. In contrast, the conversations between hearing peers were very balanced with similar topic initiation, length of turn, numbers of questions, personal comments, and minimal answers. These findings will help teachers to provide support for both pragmatic and social skills in children who are D/HH.

Deaf education and underlying structures of power in communication

This article argues that claims of diversity in communication in deaf education are empty rhetoric when underlying structures of power are unexamined and remain unchanged. The field of deafness provides a powerful example of the way in which competing interests can be played out under the guise of choice of communication methods. Historically, teachers of the deaf have been divided about whether deaf children should be educated through speech or sign. However, recognition of the legitimacy of native sign languages has caused a shift in the debate to the linguistic basis of this communication and the way in which language policy privileges one cultural group and its method of communication over another.

Children, Australian sign language and the web; the possibilities

This paper examines the advantages of using the World Wide Web (Web) as a resource to teach hearing primary aged children Australian Sign Language (Auslan). There is a trend towards educating signing deaf children in mainstream schools, therefore it is important to teach the hearing children sign language to enable meaningful communication and the formation of social relationships between hearing and deaf students. The authors will compare various methods of teaching sign language with the Web and further describe a selection of the available instructional material. Considerations for designing appropriate sign language teaching material for the Web are discussed particularly in the context of designing content that engages the primary school aged audience.

Welcome 2 my deaf world

Presents the story of two students at the Victorian College for the Deaf (VCD). They are Bethany Rose and Scott Masterson, two ordinary teenagers, who live in the extraordinary world of the deaf. But, to both, it is a world of rich culture, full of human possibility. It has its own language, Auslan, with its own rules, challenges and inspirations. It is a culture which very few people know or fully understand. This documentary gives footage of the last few months of Bethany and Scott's schooling at the college. These teenagers have dreams of success in life, and are eager to enter the wider world. The Victorian College for the Deaf is the first school for deaf kids, as well as being the only school in Australia where the Australian sign language (Auslan) is used from Prep to Year 12, helping its students prepare for life in the adult world.

Allegations of unlawful discrimination in education: parents taking their fight for Auslan to the courts

This paper examines the use of the Disability Discrimination Act (Commonwealth of Australia, 1992) by parents seeking access for their deaf children to native sign language in the classroom. It reviews a number of cases in which Australian parents have claimed indirect discrimination by educational authorities over their children's lack of access to instruction through Australian Sign Language (Auslan) and discusses the outcomes of such litigation. The policies endorsed by deafness organizations are contrasted with those of state educational authorities. The author discusses the limitations of a complaints-based system to address systemic discrimination and suggests the need for legislation to protect the linguistic rights of deaf children.

Doing it in the courts : opening research to public scrutiny

This paper analyses the positioning of researchers and their research by the courts in legal complaints brought against educational authorities. Over the past decade at least eleven formal complaints related to deaf children's access to native sign language in education have been lodged with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

This ongoing legal action has brought a pedagogical debate over educational policy into the courts. The most recent case to reach the Federal Court of Australia was taken by the families of two deaf children against a state educational authority, allegedly for failing to provide the children with an adequate education. The complainants called for teachers fluent in Auslan (Australian Sign Language) or interpreters to be employed alongside mainstream teachers.

As a researcher in this field, I have acted as an expert witness in eight of these cases, tendered my thesis as evidence, and been cross-examined in the Federal Court. Court transcripts from the two most recent cases provide the data for an analysis of the way in which legal counsel position researchers (as 'advocates', having vested interests, representing lobby groups) and interpret their research to support the legal arguments being made.

Pretend play and maternal scaffolding : comparisons of toddlers with advanced development, typical development, and hearing impairment

This study used measures of pretend play and maternal scaffolding to explore and compare the early development of deaf children, typically developing children, and children showing advanced intellectual development. Marked differences were found among the groups in both play development and characteristics of mother-child interactions. In particular, children who scored above 130 IQ at four years of age were found, as toddlers, to have demonstrated significantly advanced pretend play. In addition, the mothers of the high IQ children engaged in scaffolding behaviors involving higher stages of pretend transformations, verbal analogies and world links. The findings are discussed in relation to children's learning in Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development, as well as possible implications for future research on early gifted development.

The effects of speech production and vocabulary training on different components of spoken language performance

A group of 21 hard-of-hearing and deaf children attending primary school were trained by their teachers on the production of selected consonants and on the meanings of selected words. Speech production, vocabulary knowledge, reading aloud, and speech perception measures were obtained before and after each type of training. The speech production training produced a small but significant improvement in the percentage of consonants correctly produced in words. The vocabulary training improved knowledge of word meanings substantially. Performance on speech perception and reading aloud were significantly improved by both types of training. These results were in accord with the predictions of a mathematical model put forward to describe the relationships between speech perception, speech production, and language measures in children (Paatsch, Blamey, Sarant, Martin, & Bow, 2004). These training data demonstrate that the relationships between the measures are causal. In other words, improvements in speech production and vocabulary performance produced by training will carry over into predictable improvements in speech perception and reading scores. Furthermore, the model will help educators identify the most effective methods of improving receptive and expressive spoken language for individual children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The effects of phonological and morphological training on speech perception scores and grammatical judgments in deaf and hard-of-hearing children

Seventeen primary school deaf and hard-of-hearing children were given two types of training for 9 weeks each. Phonological training involved practice of /s, z, t, d/ in word final position in monomorphemic words. Morphological training involved learning and practicing the rules for forming third-person singular, present tense, past tense, and plurals. The words used in the two training types were different (monomorphemic or polymorphemic) but both involved word final /s, z, t, d/. Grammatical judgments were tested before and after training using short sentences that were read aloud by the child (or by the presenter if the child was unable to read them). Perception was tested with 150 key words in sentences using the trained morphemes and phonemes in word final position. Grammatical judgments for sentences involving the trained morphemes improved significantly after each type of training. Both types of training needed to be completed before a significant improvement was found for speech perception scores. The results suggest that both phonological and morphological training are beneficial in improving speech perception and grammatical performance of deaf and hard-of-hearing children and that both types of training were required to obtain the maximum benefit.