This book brings together current thinking on informal language learning and the findings of over 30 years of research on captions (same language subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing) to present a new model of language learning from captioned viewing and a future roadmap for research and practice in this field. Language learners may have…

Positron emission tomography imaging was used to evaluate the brain's response to auditory stimulation, including speech, in deaf adults (five with cochlear implants and one with an auditory brainstem implant). Functional speech processing was associated with activation in areas classically associated with speech processing. (Contains five…

This study investigated the multidimensional information underlying accurate speech perception as processed by children with mild to severe hearing impairments. Results suggested that the auditory dimension has a normal strength-of-processing level (thus normally distracting) but that the linguistic dimension has an underdeveloped…

Seventy-three children (ages 4-18) with hearing impairments were administered the Auditory Perception of Alphabet Letters test. Results indicated excellent reliability, and high intercorrelations with both open-set and closed-set auditory tests. The study concludes that spoken names of alphabet letters can be employed as an effective auditory…

This study examined the behavior of 70 children with hearing losses attending a clinical program providing an auditory-verbal intervention. Parents' ratings indicated that boys were more likely to display temperament features nonconducive to traditional clinical language intervention. Girls' language and placement outcomes surpassed the boys',…

Twenty-two hearing-impaired children (ages 9 to 13) with a hearing loss of 80 dB or greater completed 3 tasks of intonation perception and production. Acoustic analysis suggested a relationship between imitation and discrimination of intonation contours and a relationship between imitation and production of orally read sentences when a rising…

The speech perception performance of 10 congenitally deaf and 3 postlingually deafened children who received multichannel cochlear implants were compared at preimplant and 6-month intervals up to 2 years. The congenitally deaf children did not exhibit measurably improved performance until after 12 months or more of implant use, whereas…

Videotaped productions of isolated American Sign Language signs or sentences were presented at speeds of two to six times normal. Results indicated a breakdown in intelligibility at around 2.5 to 3 times the normal rate. Results are similar to those found for auditory reception of time-compressed speech suggesting a modality-independent limit to…

This study evaluated English phrases and sentences in a minimal-pairs syllable-test format, to assess use of acoustic cues in audiovisual perception of speech by persons with severe or profound hearing loss. Of 48 items, 39 were visually confusable; 16 items identified as visually confusable were reliably identifiable when sound was added.…

Thirty children with profound hearing impairments were followed over a three-year period with a semiannual battery of speech perception tests. Testing utilized multichannel tactile vocoders in variations of tactile and/or auditory/visual conditions. Performance in the tactile plus auditory condition generally exceeded that in other conditions,…

This study investigated associations between infants' prelinguistic communicative behaviors at 9 months and their communication and language performance at 12 and 18 months. The inclusion of both hearing (N=19) and deaf (N=16) infants in the study allowed identification of effects related to the receptive communication modality (vision versus…