The question "What's it like to be deaf?" has engendered debates on whether deafness should be considered a "loss," a "gain," or both. It is doubtful that many scholars would agree that an adequate answer entails only a depiction of the degree of hearing acuity or loss, perhaps in conjunction with age at onset,…

If teachers want to educate deaf learners effectively, they have to apply evidence-informed methods and didactics with the needs of individual deaf students in mind. Education in general -- and education for deaf learners in particular -- is situated in broader societal contexts, where what works within the Western world may be quite different…

Teaching a second language to students who are Deaf and hard-of-hearing is unique because language learning techniques often disrupt spoken/phonocentric models of bilingual language learning that require speech before learning to read and write. Balanced bilingual educational strategies in education of Deaf and hard-of-hearing students include…

Young deaf and hard-of-hearing children enrolling in school in Sri Lanka often display language delay due to limited amplification and limited language stimulation. The scarcity of speech and language therapy support within the educational context at present necessitates a rethink of service-delivery models to reach more children. Multi-sensory…

Communication is an innate behavior people engage in to convey one's thoughts, needs, and interests to others (Knapp, Hall, & Horgan, 2014). Recommended Practices from the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children (DEC, 2014) encourage teachers to partner with families to implement strategies that support…

The case of a 17-year-old deaf student serves as a means of identifying specific home and school supports that had facilitated robust language and literacy development across the life span. Data consist of observations of the student while reading and thinking aloud, as direct evidence of proficiency, as well as follow-up student and parent…

Hearing loss is a type of disability where people who suffer from it could not hear a sound or can only listen to a sound with certain levels. People with hearing loss use sign language to communicate with others and to help them in their learning process. For this study, an interview and survey were conducted with teachers and students from SK…

The high degree of comprehensibility between the signed languages in Trieste (present-day Italy) and Austria is very probably due to their joint history of deaf schools within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Investigation undertaken in archives in Trieste and Klagenfurt has revealed interesting similarities in the education of deaf children there…

Colonial and decolonial tensions manifested in a unique, Mexican school for the deaf that used Mexican Sign Language for instruction. (De)colonial tensions were inherent in the school's work, from its non-Mexican, Foreign-origin school board to its child-of-deaf-adults principal's vision. We observed the presence of a colonial legacy, decolonial…

In the study reported on here we investigated the effects of sign language barriers among Deaf learners in special schools for the Deaf and Blind in the Motheo District in the Free State province of South Africa. Semi-structured focus group interviews were held with 7 teachers (2 males and 5 females) and 10 Grade 8 learners (6 males and 4 females)…

The focus of this article is the experiences of Deaf Philadelphians vis-à-vis language policy and practice at PSD. We delineate the official and unofficial communication philosophies and pedagogies from the school's inception to present day, providing a framework for understanding the trajectory of linguistic freedom and restriction of its…

Teaching young children with language delays to say or sign the word "more" has had strong support from the literature since the 1970s (Bloom & Lahey, 1978; Holland, 1975; Lahey & Bloom, 1977; Lederer, 2002). Semantically, teaching children the word/sign "more" is supported by research on early vocabulary development…

At least since the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, deaf children worldwide have a right to education not only in the spoken and written language of their country, but also in the national sign language. The pedagogical use of a sign language in European schools for the deaf began in the 1980s and has since evolved…

This investigation aimed to explore the feasibility of implementing the strategic and interactive signing instruction (SISI) framework and its potential to enhance the signed composition skills of four deaf students in a first/second-grade classroom. SISI was adapted from the existing strategic and interactive writing instruction (SIWI) framework…

The nature of this research study examines the relationship between text-talking and writing skills used by American Sign Language (ASL) and English speakers. When given ample opportunity to text-talk in academic settings, it is likely that students will improve their expressive communication and writing skills. The main research question asks:…