936 research outputs found

    Teacher Resistance to Oralism in the 1970s: A Case Study of a School for the Deaf

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    The central aim of this research was to investigate teacher resistance in a deaf school, in the South West of England, as they responded to contradictions in their careers during the oral method of deaf education. The most notable contradiction was that the oral methods failed a sizeable portion of deaf students who had no recourse to other methods. Other contradictions revolved around differences between the interpretation of deaf lives from a cultural or medical viewpoint and tensions between the influences of normalisation and the growing acceptance of diversity. Giddens’ (1984) ontological project of structuration is used as a sensitising lens for the study because of its focus on both structures, rules and resources for social actions, and individual agency blended in a recursive relationship. A bricolage of interviews and historical documents are used to create a history of the school outlining the dominant structures in deaf education and the development of the oral method through time, ultimately to the late 1970s when, in this case study, the oral method was augmented with Cued Speech and Sign Supported English. This case study focuses on thirteen teachers who taught mainly through the 1970s, of which eleven participated in semi-structured interviews. Grounded theory is used as a way of collecting and analysing data so that the findings were, in large, inductive. Conformity to the oral method, in most cases, required a state of consciousness that Giddens (1984) called a practical consciousness, where teachers replicated existing patterns of society, including the more durable structures associated with their social positioning, that is their socially legitimated identities. Oppositional behaviours, including resistance, required a discursive consciousness where agents explored other opportunities triggered as a result of contradictions that arose in their lives. Most participants conformed to the oral method but a few employed occasional oppositional behaviours, for example allowing students to sign to those who could not profit from the oral teaching. Three participants resisted the oral method, evidenced by developing Deaf cultural competencies and with that a growing awareness of deaf epistemologies. This epistemic reflexivity led them to value and learn sign language and Deaf culture and develop transformative practices, creating different deaf pedagogies in safe spaces away from the prying eyes of other teachers and the school leadership. From limited discussions with some pupils, who attended the school during the 1960s and 1970s, these behaviours and teaching styles were welcomed and appreciated by the students

    Library Trends 41 (1) 1992: Libraries Serving an Underserved Population: Deaf and Hearing-Impaired Patrons

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    SASL Journal, Volume 2, Number 2

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    Communicating through Distraction: A Study of Deaf Drivers and Their Communication Style in a Driving Environment

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    This study will investigate the driving habits of deaf drivers and the manners in which they adapt to their driving experience. The lack of an auditory sense presents some unique challenges. While it is clear that driving is a predominantly visual task, auditory stimulation is still a part of the driving experience. This study seeks to determine how deaf drivers cope in a driving environment despite hearing loss. The results of the study will help to inform policy that can make the driving experience safer

    Chasing ancestors: searching for the roots of American Sign Language in the Kentish Weald, 1620-1851

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    Late twentieth-century discourses regarding deaf people and sign language provide the theoretical background for investigating early modern families with hereditary deafness within the Kentish Weald. The first of its kind, this thesis described the methods used to ascertain the presence of sufficient numbers of networked deaf people to maintain natural sign language. A source-driven work, it began with two data sources - a list generated by previous American genealogical research of the first known European-American deaf families originating from seventeenth-century Kent and the 1851 Census of Great Britain, a previously unexplored resource of the first attempt to fully enumerate deaf people in Britain. This thesis was based on an analysis of primary documentation and a critical reading of previous primary and secondary sources seeking to connect the two initial sources. Its framework was predicated on a stance that acknowledges and values deaf culture and its embodied performed manifestation, sign language. Examining the discourses surrounding deaf people throughout the period, it relied upon the concepts of representation, individual identity, and group identity to query the existence of a deaf group identity predating the labels used to describe it

    A new framework for sign language alphabet hand posture recognition using geometrical features through artificial neural network (part 1)

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    Hand pose tracking is essential in sign languages. An automatic recognition of performed hand signs facilitates a number of applications, especially for people with speech impairment to communication with normal people. This framework which is called ASLNN proposes a new hand posture recognition technique for the American sign language alphabet based on the neural network which works on the geometrical feature extraction of hands. A user’s hand is captured by a three-dimensional depth-based sensor camera; consequently, the hand is segmented according to the depth analysis features. The proposed system is called depth-based geometrical sign language recognition as named DGSLR. The DGSLR adopted in easier hand segmentation approach, which is further used in segmentation applications. The proposed geometrical feature extraction framework improves the accuracy of recognition due to unchangeable features against hand orientation compared to discrete cosine transform and moment invariant. The findings of the iterations demonstrate the combination of the extracted features resulted to improved accuracy rates. Then, an artificial neural network is used to drive desired outcomes. ASLNN is proficient to hand posture recognition and provides accuracy up to 96.78% which will be discussed on the additional paper of this authors in this journal

    Sign language in South Africa: pedagogic approaches, policy developments and new directions

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    This objective of this thesis is to present and critique sign language-in-education policy and different teaching pedagogies used by teachers in the Eastern and Western Cape Deaf schools. The research was conducted in four Deaf schools in the Eastern and Western Cape Provinces. Data was collected through methods which include interviews, observations and questionnaires. The study results revealed that there was inconsistency of teaching approaches used by teachers in these different schools because some of them lacked knowledge and sign language skills. Additionally, many teachers who are teaching in Deaf schools did not get sign language training. Thus, the study concluded that some teachers lack knowledge of teaching methods. Also Deaf schools’ principals and school governing bodies employ teachers who are coming from the mainstream and who are not necessarily aware of Deaf children’s needs, forgetting that Deaf learners will struggle without suitable resources. Furthermore, the study concluded that teachers use different teaching approaches, such as Total Communication, Oral Approach, Signed English, Bilingualism, South African Sign Language (SASL) and other means of communication. Deaf learners were also forced to use Oral Communication although some of them were totally deaf. The research showed that Deaf learners and Deaf teacher assistants were not pleased about the way Deaf learners were being taught. Deaf learners complained about teachers, that they lack sign language communication skills and as a result the learners became the interpreters for the teachers. Teachers in turn complained about the curriculum training which was provided for individual and selected teachers. The research also offers a comparative study, in the sense that the development of sign language across different countries from Europe and Africa as well as the United States of America, is included. The thesis furthermore explores the development of SASL CAPS Curriculum in the Western Cape Province, i.e. grade R-3 which began in 2014 as opposed to the Eastern Cape teachers who experienced difficulties due to limited curriculum implementation resources. Therefore, this research suggests that, the Language Task Team which worked on the new CAPS curriculum should have involved Deaf teachers and teachers more generally in their team and decisions. The research sought to find a theoretical or grammatical basis for the development of SASL, while at the same time providing empirical data gathered from the four respective school sites. This data is analysed and presented in the thesis

    Implementing the teaching handwriting, reading and spelling skills programme with an intermediate phase deaf Gauteng learner using the spoken language approach

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    The rationale for this study was to investigate the implementation of the THRASS literacy programme on a deaf learner who uses the spoken language approach. Particular emphasis was given to the role played by the Phoneme Machine together with Cued Speech. THRASS focuses on phoneme-grapheme correspondence by explicit phonics instruction to develop word analysis and recognition skills. Cued Speech is used as an instructional tool to facilitate visual access to auditory-based phonology. The research was framed within the Interpretivist paradigm and a qualitative case study design predominated, although the launch and landing of the study was quantitative in nature. The findings indicated that the auditory-based phonology of the English language may be accessed by a deaf learner, when supported by a visual instructional tool such as Cued Speech in synchronicity with speech-reading, to develop print literacy skills. This study opens the gateway to further enquiry on enhancing deaf literacy levels.Inclusive EducationM. Ed. (Inclusive Education

    Deaf where is thy sting? An exploration into the perceptions of deaf-related terms and phrases of three Communities of Practice (Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Hearing)

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    The question, ‘Deaf where is thy sting?’ occurs in Lodge’s (2008:62) novel Deaf Sentence and provides us with a striking example of how the word deaf can be used readily in everyday literal and non-literal language. This MA thesis seeks to ascertain different Communities of Practice’s (henceforth CofPs) perceptions of the non-literal use of the word deaf and associated terms and phrases such as to turn a deaf ear, it fell on deaf ears, are you deaf? deaf and dumb, stone deaf, deaf as a post, deaf-mute, hard of hearing and hearing impaired. The CofPs investigated are the Hearing, Hard of Hearing and the Deaf communities. The project combines concepts and ideas drawn from corpus linguistics, sociolinguistics and sign linguistics. It also draws on concepts which transcend different linguistic approaches: those of semantic prosody, lexical priming, collocation and framing. As Lakoff (2004:4) states, ‘framing is about [using] language that fits your worldview. [Hence] it is not just language. The ideas are primary – and language carries those ideas, [and] evokes those ideas’. Implicit within this statement is the idea that membership of a given CofP is likely to shape our understanding of certain words, terms and phrases. This research assesses the neutral, negative and positive prosodies of the above-mentioned terms from the representatives of the three CofPs. Questions addressed include: • Are such language terms problematic for them all and, if so, why? • Are they (ever) used or interpreted consciously they are used by the media and /or in literature texts? If so, why? If not, why not? The main findings from this research project are that the terms deaf and dumb and deaf-mute tend to be perceived as descriptive labels for deafness. It is revealed that these terms are not used much nowadays because they can be somewhat derogatory in terms of their association between deafness and being dumb or mute. The term Hard of Hearing is a preferred term over the term Hearing impaired - a categorisation which is deemed derogatory by the Deaf CofP. The phrases to turn a deaf ear and it fell on deaf ears are perceived to convey a negative semantic prosody and representatives of the three CofPs separately recommended an alternate way of phrasing the concept of ignoring someone or something
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