Background: Key Word Signing (KWS) is one system that can be used to support the communication needs of children with Down syndrome (DS) who attend mainstream school. The success of KWS in schools is mediated by staff experiences and perceptions of KWS. The current study is one of the first to explore KWS use in mainstream schools. Aims: To…

In October 2023, a new deaf student, "Zuri," showed up in my second grade classroom. This often happens. Parents move into and out of the district for work, and it is common to get a new student in the middle of the year without warning. Zuri's eyes were wide when she came into the classroom, and she looked scared. Who were all these…

Parallel support is a Greek type of special education provision aiming at providing additional support to students identified with special educational needs and/or disability in mainstream classrooms. Drawing from quantitative data for the school-year 2018-2019 this paper presents findings on certain characteristics of primary and pre-primary…

This study investigates the communication practices of four teachers in 3rd to 6th grade classrooms with 9 deaf students with limited language proficiency and in stages of emergent writing development. Analyzing language modalities, utterance types, and class interactivity, we found that teachers using American sign language used student-centered…

Indonesia is committed to creating an inclusive education system. Kindergartens have a key role to play in this endeavour. However, there are specific challenges that need to be addressed if this potential is to be fulfilled. It has been suggested that the use of keyword signs within Sign Supported Big Books (SSBB) as part of everyday story time…

The aim of this study was to examine how sign language policies are being implemented in special schools for the Deaf in Zimbabwe. It employed in-depth interviews to solicit data from 29 participants who were four district school inspectors, four educational psychologists, four school heads and 17 grade one to three specialist teachers. Data were…

We investigated relations between kindergarten precursors and second-grade reading skills in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children, and aimed to identify subgroups based on reading skills, in order to explore early signs of later reading delays. DHH children (n = 23, M[subscript age] kindergarten = 6.25) participated from kindergarten-second…

This study followed the development of Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) proficiency in 31 deaf bimodal bilingual children (kindergarten through Primary 6) over two years. The Hong Kong Sign Language Elicitation Tool (HKSL-ET) was used at three time points to elicit the production of agreement, classifier, modal, negation, and wh-question structures.…

Educational sign language interpreting services (SLIS) are vital for ensuring equal access to classroom information for mainstreamed deaf students. This study conducted interviews with 12 stakeholders, including deaf students and their parents, sign language interpreters, and resource room teachers, to comprehensively explore the status of…

Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students in Hong Kong face great challenges in academic learning since for decades oral language has been the only means of communication in classrooms. The establishment of the Sign Bilingualism and Co-enrollment in Deaf Education (SLCO) Program aims to provide an accessible mainstream environment that supports DHH…

This study examined deaf learners' academic and social difficulties as well as their coping mechanisms in Ethiopian elementary schools. To do this, the study adopted a phenomenological design from qualitative research methodology. Purposive sampling methods were used to choose nine deaf students for semi-structured interviews. Using word-by-word…

Writing is an essential element of literacy development, and language plays a central role in the composing process, including developing, organizing, and refining ideas. Language and writing are interconnected, making it paramount for educators to attend to the development of deaf students' language skills. In this quasi-experimental study, we…

This study aims to document the implementation of sign bilingualism and co-enrollment education in a kindergarten in Quzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, to identify the major characteristics of the programme, and to report findings of children's language in terms of vocabulary and surveys on the views and attitudes of the stakeholders of the…

The process of reform of the education system of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century was central for the establishment of new institutes for the less advantaged members of the society. Among these, special schools for D/deaf students stand out, not least because all the communities that were part of the Empire could be enrolled in…

Very little is known about how unidentified dual sensory loss (DSL) may affect education and academic outcomes for students with extensive support needs (ESN). We used data from a teacher survey on over 100,000 students with ESN who take U.S. statewide alternate assessments to identify the number of students with known and suspected DSL and the…