A curricular analysis of the servicing of students who are hearing impaired in Dade County, Florida

Deafness is an invisible handicap which makes education difficult due to its effect on language acquisition and development, speech acquisition, and ability to communicate with others. Teachers of students who are hearing impaired have been at odds for more than a century as to the best method of communication to use in teaching students who are hearing impaired, and in providing these students with communication systems that will enable them to be effective communicators. This dissertation utilized qualitative research methods to analyze whether the Dade County Public Schools Procedures for Providing Special Education for Exceptional Students-Hearing Impaired (DCPS), (1976-77; 1992-93) show evidence of an appropriate curriculum and instructional program that is responsive to the conditions facing exceptional education students identified as hearing impaired. Results indicate that many of the curriculum and instructional program requirements are not identified nor described when analyzed by Tyler's "Rationale" for Curriculum and Stufflebeam's Improvement-Oriented Evaluation Model, better known as Stufflebeam's CIPP Model. Recommendations to improve and enhance programs for students who are hearing impaired are offered based on this analysis. ^

The effects of bilingual and monolingual reading videos on story recall with students who are deaf and hard of hearing

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of bilingual and monolingual videos on the reading comprehension of students with significant hearing impairments and/or deafness. Children with and without hearing losses need reading programs in which comprehension of meaning is the primary goal. This can occur only when print is represented in meaningful context, allowing children to create meaning from their own experience, background, and knowledge of language.^ Investigated in this study was whether students with significant hearing losses comprehended more information in a bilingual or monolingual instructional video format. There were three instructional videos produced: (a) the bilingual video which incorporated American Sign Language (ASL) with standard English captions, (b) a monolingual English video with standard English captions only, and (c) a monolingual ASL-only video. It was hypothesized that the effects of English captioning with ASL might serve as a bridge during instruction, increasing reading comprehension and written English for students. It was further hypothesized that this would allow students to integrate their own ASL knowledge to the printed text to construct meaning.^ Four separate analyses were conducted to see if the hypothesis was supported by the findings. However, all results indicated that there were no significant differences in students' written measures of reading comprehension recall across any of the three presentations of information (two monolingual and one bilingual condition). There were seven variables (word identification, word recall, sentence recall, story recall, written passage theme, written passage word count, and number of mature words) used to evaluate reading comprehension recall. No variable, either individually or grouped, demonstrated a significant difference between monolingual or bilingual instruction. ^

Adventures and Misfortunes in Macondo: Rehabilitation of the Cienaga Grande

We describe trajectories of selected ecological indicators used as performance measures to evaluate the success of a mangrove rehabilitation project in the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta (CGSM) Delta-Lagoon complex, Colombia, as result of freshwater diversions initiated in 1995. There is a significant reduction in soil and water column salinity in all sampling stations following the hydraulic reconnection of the Clarín and Aguas Negras channels to the Magdalena River. Soil intersticial water salinity (depth: 0.5 m) (7 stations) and water column salinity (0.5 m) (10 stations) values declined significantly (soil <30 g kg-1; water <10 g kg-1) from 1994 to 2000. During 1994 soil interstitial water salinity ranged from 40 g kg-1 (Rinconada) to 100 g kg-1 (KM 13), while water column salinity fluctuated between 25-35 g kg-1 for most of the sampling stations. This salinity reduction increased mangrove forest regeneration promoting a net gain of 99 km2 from 1995 to 1999. The high precipitation recorded in 1995 and 1999 caused by El Niño-La Niña (ENSO), coinciding with the channels rehabilitation, influenced rapid mangrove regeneration. The lack of economic investment in the maintenance of the diversion structures from 2001 to 2004 caused a salinity increase affecting negatively already restored vegetation. A sustainable effort from the international community and the Colombian government is needed to maintain the strategic social and economic benefits reached until 2000 in the CGSM region.

Prolonged Rehabilitation of Jones Fracture in Division I-A Collegiate American Football Player: A Case Report

Objective: To describe the prolonged rehabilitation program for a Jones fracture in a Division I-A American football player. Background: A 21 year old, African American, collegiate football player (body mass= 264 lb; height= 76.5 in; body fat= 16.0%) complained of a sharp pain at the dorsal aspect of the left foot. The athlete experiences a compressive force to the fifth metatarsal and upon evaluation, mild swelling was present along the lateral aspect of the foot. Differential Diagnosis: Jones fracture, metatarsal fracture, bone contusion. Treatment: An intramedullary fixation surgery was scheduled two weeks post injury, to correct and stabilize the fracture. Intramedullary fixation is a method of mending the bone internally with a screw, wire, or metal plate along the fractured bone length wise. Following surgery the athlete continued use of crutches for ambulation and was placed in a removable walking boot for 5 weeks. Uniqueness: This case presented a unique challenge in the rehabilitation program, as the athlete experienced slow formation of the bone callus and therefore a prolonged rate of recovery. The athlete was in a walking boot longer than expected (2 weeks longer than anticipated) which inhibited advancement in his rehabilitation due to a slow bone callus formation. A soft callus usually begins to form at day 5 following injury, but documentation was incomplete, and a hypothesis for slow bone callus formation could be secondary to lengthened time between injury occurrence and injury reporting. The athlete may have been weight bearing during the early callus formation, but healing may have been prohibited. Also, vascularization in the area is already limited and may also have played a role in delayed bone growth. Conclusions: Although the return to participation was longer than expected, the rehabilitation program was successful in returning the athlete to competition.

Effects of real -time captioning and sign language interpreting on the learning of college students who are deaf or hard of hearing

College personnel are required to provide accommodations for students who are deaf and hard of hearing (D/HoH), but few empirical studies have been conducted on D/HoH students as they learn under the various accommodation conditions (sign language interpreting, SLI, real-time captioning, RTC, and both). Guided by the experiences of students who are D/HoH at Miami-Dade College (MDC) who requested RTC in addition to SLI as accommodations, the researcher adopted Merten’s transformative-emancipatory theoretical framework that values perceptions and voice of students who are D/HoH. A mixed methods design addressed two research questions: Did student learning differ for each accommodation? What did students experience while learning through accommodations? Participants included 30 students who were D/HoH (60% women). They represented MDC’s majority minority population: 10% White (non-Hispanic), 20% Black (non-Hispanic, including Haitian/Caribbean), 67% Hispanic, and 3% other. Hearing loss, ranged from severe-profound (70%) to mild-moderate (30%). All were able to communicate with American Sign Language: Learning was measured while students who were D/HoH viewed three lectures under three accommodation conditions (SLI, RTC, SLI+RTC). The learning measure was defined as the difference in pre- and post-test scores on tests of the content presented in the lectures. Using repeated measure ANOVA and ANCOVA, confounding variables of fluency in American Sign Language and literacy skills were treated as covariates. Perceptions were obtained through interviews and verbal protocol analysis that were signed, videotaped, transcribed, coded, and examined for common themes and metacognitive strategies. No statistically significant differences were found among the three accommodations on the learning measure. Students who were D/HoH expressed thoughts about five different aspects of their learning while they viewed lectures: (a) comprehending the information, (b) feeling a part of the classroom environment, (c) past experiences with an accommodation, (d) individual preferences for an accommodation, (e) suggestions for improving an accommodation. They exhibited three metacognitive strategies: (a) constructing knowledge, (b) monitoring comprehension, and (c) evaluating information. No patterns were found in the types of metacognitive strategies used for any particular accommodation. The researcher offers recommendations for flexible applications of the standard accommodations used with students who are D/HoH.

The identification of early factors related to academic achievement among deaf students

The purpose of this research study was to examine specific factors believed to be related to academic achievement in deaf children. More specifically, this research sought to determine whether there was a significant difference in achievement between those students whose parents use oral communication only and those whose parents use some type of sign language. An additional purpose of this research was to determine if there was a significant difference in academic achievement with those deaf students who used amplification devices early in life. This study also sought to determine whether providing early intervention program which emphasizes and enables parents to develop a language rich environment had a significant impact on the academic achievement of deaf children and whether the age at which initial services are received influence deaf student's subsequent academic achievement. This study examined the relationship, if any, between intellectual ability and academic achievement among deaf children. Finally, this study sought to investigate the relationship between the degree of hearing loss and academic achievement. ^ Purposive sampling was used to select subjects for this study. All 228 eligible Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH) students enrolled in a Broward County Public School were included in the original sample. Sixty-one students actually participated in this study. A correlational method of statistical analysis as well as a cross classification (crosstabs) was used to analyze the data. ^ The results show that academic achievement in the areas of reading and mathematics was significantly related to parental mode of communication and the mode of communication used in school. Academic achievement, in the area of reading, was also signficantly related to intellectual ability. The reading achievement was also found to be significantly related to degree of hearing loss. Written language was not significantly related to any factors investigated in this study. ^ Additional research should be conducted to further investigate the low academic achievement among deaf children. The diversity among signing systems at school and between home and school should also be analyzed. Finally, future studies should examine curriculum and instruction methods to increase the academic achievement of deaf children. ^

Development of thresholds for surface preparation in repair systems with wet lay -up fiber reinforced polymers

Bonded repair of concrete structures with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) systems is increasingly being accepted as a cost-efficient and structurally viable method of rapid rehabilitation of concrete structures. However, the relationships between long-term performance attributes, service-life, and details of the installation process are not easy to quantify. Accordingly, there is currently a lack of generally accepted construction specifications, making it difficult for the field engineer to certify the adequacy of the construction process. ^ The objective of the present study, as part of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Project 10-59B, was to investigate the effect of surface preparation on the behavior of wet lay-up FRP repair systems and consequently develop rational thresholds that provide sufficient performance. ^ The research program was comprised of both experimental and analytical work for wet lay-up FRP applications. The experimental work included flexure testing of sixty-seven (67) reinforced concrete beams and bond testing of ten (10) reinforced concrete blocks. Four different parameters were studied: surface roughness, surface flatness, surface voids and bug holes, and surface cracks/cuts. The findings were analyzed from various aspects and compared with the data available in the literature. As part of the analytical work, finite element models of the flexural specimens with surface flaws were developed using ANSYS. The purpose of this part was to extend the parametric study on the effects of concrete surface flaws and verify the experimental results based on nonlinear finite element analysis. ^ Test results showed that surface roughness does not appear to have a significant influence on the overall performance of the wet lay-up FRP systems with or without adequate anchorage, and whether failure was by debonding or rupture of FRP. Both experimental and analytical results for surface flatness proved that peaks on concrete surface, in the range studied, do not have a significant effect on the performance of wet lay-up FRP systems. However, valleys of particular size could reduce the strength of wet lay-up FRP systems. Test results regarding surface voids and surface cracks/cuts revealed that previously suggested thresholds for these flaws appear to be conservative, as also confirmed by analytical study. ^