This article presents theoretical orientations and practical applications for the assessment of d/Deaf and hard of hearing (d/Dhh) children. It discusses current approaches to assessment and the factors affecting d/Dhh children's participation in assessments using those approaches. Gaps in the field around access to appropriate assessments are…

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…

This Brief Report addresses the fundamental role that sign language plays in the mathematics classroom of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students. Selected findings are gathered from an ongoing study of signs and gestures used by DHH students and their teachers when encountering and communicating mathematical ideas at a German special-needs school…

This article focuses on the similar approaches to, yet different contexts of legal recognition of sign languages in Sweden and Norway. We use examples from sign language documentation (both scientific and popular), legislation that mentions sign language, organization of implementation of sign language acquisition, and public discourse (as…

This article shares the story of Jose, a student that presents an extreme example of what can happen to deaf and hard of hearing children in our nation's schools when assessment data is either inaccurate or ignored and parental input is absent. Presenting a unique challenge to the educational system, each deaf or hard of hearing child is at the…

We tested the capability of deaf adolescents, including a group of users of cochlear implants, to generate inferences during spoken language comprehension and whether they benefited from the use of sign-supported speech (SSS). Stimuli consisted of 24 short video-recorded texts in spoken language and in SSS. Participants responded to literal and…

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…

By providing evidence that sign language is an autonomous language, research has contributed to various changes both within and beyond the signing communities. The aim of this article is to present an example of how sign language change is driven not only by language-internal factors but also by changes in language perception, as well as in the…

Pamela Wright Moers has worked with American Sign Language (ASL) and English language instruction for over 25 years, and both her work and her studies have focused on the various uses of language. Her research has been on language endangerment, diversity in sign language, third-world sign languages, and the phonological and semantic structures…

Brenda Perrodin is a teacher in the Parent-Infant Program at the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center's Kendall Demonstration Elementary School (KDES), on the campus of Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. With a bachelor's degree in early childhood education and a master's degree in family-centered early education from Gallaudet…

The development of sign language recognition legislation is a relatively recent phenomenon in the field of language policy. So far only few authors have documented signing communities' aspirations for recognition legislation, how they work with their governments to achieve legislation which most reflects these goals, and whether and why outcomes…

This paper presents a critical examination of key concepts in the study of (signed and spoken) language and multimodality. It shows how shifts in conceptual understandings of language use, moving from bilingualism to multilingualism and (trans)languaging, have resulted in the revitalisation of the concept of language repertoires. We discuss key…

In this study, we investigated how activation unfolds in sign production by examining whether signs that are not produced have their representations activated by semantics (cascading of activation). Deaf signers were tested with a picture-picture interference task. Participants were presented with pairs of overlapping pictures and named the green…

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)…