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…

Two experiments investigated the perception of coarticulatory cues by 10 college age adults in the speech of 9 children with profound hearing loss and 9 children with normal hearing. Overall, listeners were able to identify vowels in productions by both groups though the patterning of vowel identification differed for the two speaker groups in…

This study examined the effects of speechreading sentence perception across three speaker viewing angles: front view, quarter view, and side view. The performance of a female adult with postlingual hearing loss was measured at each angle. Results indicated that the side view angle was the most effective, though performance at the other angles was…

The study examined the relationship between 28 segmental and suprasegmental acoustic parameters of speech production and measures of speech intelligibility for 40 severely to profoundly hearing-impaired persons (mean age 21 years). Findings support the tractability of employing selected acoustic variables for the estimation of speech…

The study examined the ability of five deaf-blind subjects to receive fingerspelled materials through the tactual sense, and of six deaf subjects to receive fingerspelling through the visual sense. Results found highly accurate tactual reception at normal rates and suggested that rates for visual reception are limited by the rate of manual…

This study examined the short term recall of serially presented verbal information by 49 prelingually deafened and 39 hearing students (mean grade level 6). Findings suggest that neither discrepancy in the ordered short-term recall of verbal materials nor discrepancies in reading comprehension are directly assignable to differences in memory…

Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that visual information related to segmental versus prosodic aspects of speech is distributed differently on the face of the talker. Results indicate that information in the upper part of the talker's face is more critical for intonation pattern decisions than for decisions about word segments…

This study assessed deaf and hearing students' comprehension of captions with and without visuals/video. Results indicate that reading grade level is highly correlated with caption comprehension test scores. Comprehension of the deaf students was consistently below that of hearing students. The captioned video produced significantly better…

The study compared comprehension of American Sign Language (ASL) between 12 deaf subjects in a program using Signing Exact English (SEE-2) and 14 deaf subjects in a residential program using Signed English, Pidgin Signed English, and ASL. Students exposed to SEE-2 could comprehend ASL as well as residential school peers. (Author/DB)

This study examined the effects of teaching prelingually deaf, elementary school children specific strategies to use when reading. Strategies addressed the skills of inferring, predicting, analyzing, attending, associating, synthesizing, and monitoring. Five of six children made significant gains in both reading levels and specific metacognitive…

A study with 18 deaf high school students found that skills that actually contribute to reading proficiency included use of prior text information, prior knowledge, reading speed and consistency, use of active memory for function words and inflections, and correct processing of relative clauses and the passive voice. Instructional implications are…

This study found significantly better lipreading scores by 31 children with hearing impairments than by 15 children with normal hearing (all 10 and 11 years old). However, correlations between degree of hearing loss and lipreading ability were nonsignificant. The study provides partial support for the doctrine of sensory compensation. (DB)

Reading-related skills were tested in adults with and without reading disabilities (RD) or with profound hearing impairment (PHI). Both RD and PHI groups demonstrated low levels of phonological awareness but the RD group also exhibited deficits in verbal short-term memory, morphological awareness, speeded written naming, reading comprehension, and…

The study assessed the ability to track connected discourse by a congenitally profoundly deaf adult using an electrocutaneous vocoder and/or a vibrotactile aid in conjunction with or without lipreading and aided hearing. Overall, improvement in tracking performance occurred within and across phases of the study. (Author/DB)

The fundamental link between language and action is the rationale behind the design of four interactive video programs intended to teach deaf children verb tenses, literacy, and reading comprehension, and to teach hearing parents of deaf children to use British Sign Language. The four interactive video programs are described. (MBR)