Deaf Youth Research Articles

Assessing English Literacy as a Predictor of Postschool Outcomes in the Lives of Deaf Individuals

Lower English literacy achievement of deaf students is often hypothesized to be an impediment for successful adult life experiences. Yet, literacy practices that individuals engage in throughout their daily lives are much more complex than what school-based measures of English can capture and particularly so for deaf individuals. A national large-scale data set with a sample of over 1,000 deaf youths was used to assess what, precisely, standardized measures of literacy may predict in terms of postschool outcomes in three domains: life, employment, and education. Regression analyses indicate that these measures predicted some postschool outcomes, but not all, and if significant, only a small amount of variation in the outcomes was explained. Findings suggest that English literacy, particularly the narrow conceptualization of English literacy skills that are measured through school-based assessments, may not play a significant role in the lives of deaf individuals, contrary to expectations.

Psychiatric Diagnoses and Psychosocial Needs of Outpatient Deaf Children and Adolescents

Deaf youth may be more vulnerable to psychiatric disorders but very little research data is available. The current study identified prevalence rates of psychiatric disorders and examined the psychosocial needs and strengths of deaf youth aged 4-17 receiving specialized outpatient mental health services for the deaf. Compared to hearing peers, deaf youth had greater rates of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, conduct, autism-spectrum and bipolar disorders and spent three times longer in treatment than their hearing peers. In the deaf subsample, moderate-severe risk was found in social functioning (33.3 %) and suicidal behavior (14 %). Deaf youth had moderate to severe impairment in social relationships (54.8 %), school functioning (42.9 %). Over one-third of deaf youth had impaired family relationships, living situation, communication, judgment and physical health. Deaf youth present with higher rates of certain clinical disorders and have deficits in multiple life domains that may impact functioning and create a longer treatment course.

Ethnographic Strategies for Engaging Deaf Youth Participants: Photovoice and Participatory Analysis

AbstractResearchers across disciplines have looked to deaf individuals and communities to learn about many aspects of human experience, earning deaf people's unique biological and social status a subjugated position in scientific inquiry. All too often deaf people appear in the literature as research “subjects” rather than active, autonomous participants, or partner‐researchers. My research investigated deaf youth identity in Mexico City, Mexico, with a focus on the emic perspectives of my adolescent participants and their families. My focus deaf epistemologies led me to photovoice for data collection and analysis. This article outlines the engagement of deaf youth participants through the participatory visual data collection method photovoice, which allowed me to achieve the goals of a community‐based research design. This article explores the unique needs of deaf youth research participants and epistemological considerations for community‐based work among deaf youth in Mexico City. I discuss innovative ethnographic results revealing deaf youth's emic perspectives through participatory analysis.

A Comparative Study of Adaptive Emotional Abilities of Deaf and Hearing Youth of Pakistan

This study was conducted to assess the levels of adaptive emotional abilities of deaf and hearing youth in Pakistan. For this purpose an indigenous instrument, the Adaptive Emotional Abilities Scale (AEAS) was developed based on Emotional Ability Model proposed by The instrument was found to have acceptable levels of reliability and validity. AEAS was administered to 469 randomly selected deaf (Males 197) and 1050 (Females=525) hearing participants who were between 12 and 18 years. Proportion Consensus Method was used for scoring Data was analysed in SPSS V. 16. Results showed that hearing participants were significantly higher on the AEAS than the deaf participants. On the other hand it was found that variables such as access to speech services, hearing status of family member, participants preferred language, language used at home and the levels of hearing loss played important roles in the adaptive emotional abilities of the deaf participants.

The views, verdict and recommendations for school and home sex and relationships education by young deaf and hearing people

The purpose of this survey study was to explore the views of young deaf and hearing people (16–25 years old) on school and home sex and relationships education (SRE). The study addressed a critical knowledge gap in the research literature on deaf youth's perception of SRE. The small-scale study explored young deaf people's experiences of SRE and the challenges they had faced when learning about sexuality and relationships. Recommendations on how to improve school SRE lessons were also obtained. Data were collected from 81 young people (n = 27 deaf, n = 54 hearing). Overall, deaf participants indicated greater levels of satisfaction with school SRE than hearing respondents. More deaf young people than young hearing people felt that the school had provided them with enough opportunities to learn about sexuality and relationships. The deaf group showed a preference for school SRE lessons to start at a later age than the hearing group. Mothers and friends were the two sources most frequently consulted in both groups. Teachers and school nurses were a third source frequently used by the deaf group. The views of deaf and hearing youth on their own SRE are important for the development, implementation and delivery of the school SRE curriculum. The study's findings can provide educators with valuable insight on the needs of a minority group who are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation and sexual misinformation due to their sensory loss and associated factors.

Self-concept and Ego Development in Deaf Adolescents: A Comparative Study

Self-concept and ego development, two intertwined aspects of self-indicating well-being and social-cognitive maturation, respectively, were examined in a representative sample of deaf adolescents of normal intelligence (N = 68), using translated and adapted versions of Harter's (1988, Manual for the self-perception profile for adolescents. Denver, CO: University of Denver) multidimensional measure of self-concept and Loevinger's (1998, Technical foundations for measuring ego development. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum) measure of ego development. Compared to hearing norm groups, deaf adolescents showed lower levels of self-perceived social acceptance, close friendships and ego development and higher physical appearance. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses controlling for sociodemographic variables showed positive associations of global self-worth with support for signing during childhood and quality of parent-child communication and of ego development with attending a regular school. Cluster analysis identified three social competence profiles: uniformly low competence, uniformly high competence, and low social acceptance with high physical appearance. Cluster membership was associated with school type, ego development, and (past) neurological disorder. The results are discussed in reference to interventions aimed at the well-being of deaf youth.

Adaptations to the coping power program's structure, delivery settings, and clinician training.

This article describes the conceptual framework for the Coping Power program that has focused on proximal risk factors that can actively alter preadolescent children's aggressive behavior. The results of initial controlled efficacy trials are summarized. However, consistent with the theme of this special section, some clinicians and workshop participants have indicated barriers to the implementation of the Coping Power program in their service settings. In response to these types of concerns, three key areas of programmatic adaptation of the program that serve to address these concerns are then described in the article. First, existing and in-process studies of variations in how the program can be delivered are presented. Existing findings indicate how the child component fares when delivered by itself without the parent component, how simple monthly boosters affect intervention effects, and whether the program can be reduced by a third of its length and still be effective. Research planned or in progress on program variations examines whether group versus individual delivery of the program affects outcomes, whether the program can be adapted for early adolescents, whether the program can be delivered in an adaptive manner with the use of the Family Check Up, and whether a brief, efficient version of the program in conjunction with Internet programming can be developed and be effective. Second, the program has been and is being developed for use in different settings, other than the school-based delivery in the efficacy trials. Research has examined its use with aggressive deaf youth in a residential setting, with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder children in outpatient clinics, and in after-school programs. Third, the article reports how variations in training clinicians affect their ability to effectively use the program.

“Some of the things I understand but not all of it”. A group of deaf adolescents’ sources of knowledge and concerns regarding the adequacy of their level of knowledge about human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome

In light of the human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) pandemic in South Africa and the world, adolescents need to be acutely aware of the risks and consequences of HIV/AIDS. However, information campaigns may not always convey that information to adolescents successfully, especially deaf adolescents who may not have access to auditory information and may have limited access to information presented via South African Sign Language (SASL). Within the South African context, the combination of disability and poverty may exacerbate the difficulties in disseminating information about HIV/AIDS to deaf youth. Seven deaf, SASL-using adolescents at a school for deaf learners in a township in Johannesburg were interviewed with regard their sources of information and their concerns regarding the adequacy of their level of knowledge HIV/AIDS. The results of the study suggest that deaf adolescents appear to be at risk for insufficient information about HIV/AIDS due to barriers such as literacy difficulties, language barriers and limited access to information. The results also suggest that HIV/AIDS campaigns consider the needs of hearing-impaired people so that appropriate materials and methods can be implemented for the successful transmission of information about HIV/AIDS.

Deaf youth and cultural negotiation in Porto Alegre, Brazil

This paper is the result of a survey of 40 young deaf people from different social classes in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The aim is to discuss issues related to the dynamic of accessibility in contemporary urban spaces and its relation to deaf people. In this sense, arguments emerge relating to communication, especially with regard to the use of the Brazilian sign language, LIBRAS. In this context, it is necessary to recognize deaf culture, a field of study within cultural studies, which places the deaf subjects in a position of cultural difference in relation to the listeners, so that these youngsters are often grouped in some public spaces as a way of claiming rights and living as equals.

Editorial: Responding to urban youth’s own perspectives

The challenges facing urban youth in terms of both livelihoods and their involvement in local governance are increasingly recognized as some of the most important development issues worldwide. We also have remarkably few effective precedents on how to address these issues. And yet, for perhaps the first time ever in Environment and Urbanization, we have fewer themed papers in this issue than we do papers that provide feedback on themes in previous issues. We are disappointed and not a little chagrined at our failure to produce the bumper number on urban youth that was contemplated. The five papers we have certainly make an important contribution and we are delighted to be publishing them. However, some equally strong papers came in too late to be included (although these will feature in the April 2011 issue); also some research reports, while pointing in very interesting directions, were still too preliminary to be publishable; and in some cases, people who had been committed to contributing their rich experiences and strongly felt opinions turned out to be too busy to produce. We are looking forward to publishing in the next issue an overview by Richard Mabala on youth and livelihoods in Africa; an account of the youth federation in Nairobi that, in a sense, has grown up under the wing of the federation of the urban poor there but that has gone very much in its own direction; a discussion of deaf youth in large cities; an evaluation of a programme seeking to provide safe spaces and savings accounts for young girls in a Nairobi slum; and a description of the development of the Technical Training Resource Centre in Karachi, set up by a young engineering student and providing practical training for youth in construction, design and neighbourhood level mapping and documentation. There are some powerful narratives shaping the discourse around youth. On the one hand, they are seen as the problem – the unemployed, disaffected, irresponsible generation, a “ticking time bomb”, the ugly “bulge” that is likely to burst, spreading violence and chaos.(1) On the other hand, young people, and young women in particular, are seen as victims – victims of HIV, of violence, of sexual abuse, of discrimination, unemployment, exploitation. Yet another perspective is a vision of youth as the answer, a repository of knowledge, energy and vision that has only to be tapped to solve the world’s problems. This does not cover all the stereotypes around youth – in our next issue Richard Mabala will discuss a more complex typology. But these particular narratives, contradictory and simplistic as they are, can have a powerful influence on the ways in which young people are responded to, with often disappointing results. These papers offer a more thoughtful, nuanced middle ground, an area that clearly needs to be explored if the complex realities facing urban youth are to be more effectively addressed.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children and Adolescents in China: Their Fears and Anxieties

The study examined the fears and anxieties of Chinese deaf and hard of hearing children and adolescents, and the ability of parents and teachers to report the presence of these fears and anxieties. Chinese deaf youth are at risk due to a lack of trained teachers, an overemphasis on oral education in schools, negative stereotypes, and parental overprotectiveness. The deaf children and adolescents in the study reported significantly higher levels of total fears, total anxieties, fear of the unknown, fear of injury and small animals, fear of medical procedures, and concentration anxiety than their hearing counterparts. Girls reported more total fears, fear of the unknown, fear of minor injury and small animals, and fear of failure and criticism than boys. Parents showed a better ability than teachers to confirm these reports of fears and anxieties. Implications and directions for future studies are presented.

The Poetry of a Minority Community: The Deaf Poet Pierre Pélissier and the Formation of a Deaf Identity in the 1850s

This study investigates the cultural and educational ideas of the French deaf poet-teacher Pierre Pélissier (1814-1863) who was an instructor at the Paris Deaf Institute from the early 1840s until his death in 1863. As a young man, Pélissier became interested in composing poetry and through his verse, captured many of the social frustrations facing deaf people who had to manage in a hearing world. Once he became a teacher, Pélissier devoted his energies to developing the best methods to educate deaf youth. In the mid-nineteenth-century, he found himself defending natural sign language against proponents of spoken language. Pélissier responded with a his own book (published in 1856) on how sign language could be used in the French primary schools to educate deaf children. He advocated a type of bilingual educational environment for primary schools that relied on hearing and deaf students using the manual alphabet and sign language in a shared classroom setting. Pélissier's analysis of sign language as a pedagogical method clearly challenged the prevailing social view that deaf teachers were somehow less capable educators of deaf children than those who were hearing.

Letter to the Editor: Inclusion: The Big Delusion

Letter to the EditorInclusion: The Big Delusion Jean F. Andrews, Ph.D. Dear Editor: Inclusion, mainstreaming, and monolingualism as language policy for the majority of deaf youths is one of the most colossal failures in the history of education, resulting in an entire generation of Deaf semilingual students. Since the mid-1970s, with PL 94-142, IDEA, and now No Child Left Behind mandating assessments, the majority of deaf students are starving for accessible, comprehensible linguistic input in the public school system. For the past 25 years I have been in and out of small, medium, and large day programs, and what I have found are large numbers of deaf semilingual students who can't read very well, nor write, nor even understand sign language fluently. In the past 10 years, I have also provided language assessment for a dozen young Deaf adults in the court system. All of these Deaf youths have been products of public mainstream programs. They cannot read the legal documents they are asked to sign, and, furthermore, they have difficulty understanding an ASL interpreter, if they are provided one, when they stand before the judge or go on trial. In her landmark study of 99 Deaf prison inmates at Huntsville (AL) State Prison, Dr. Trina Miller (2001) found that most of these Deaf adult inmates read below the third-grade level. Many of these Deaf inmates had not fully participated in their trial because they were semilingual, meaning they had weak English and weak ASL skills (linguistic incompetence). As the state of deaf education stands now, semilingualism abounds in our public schools, courts, and prisons. A big part of this environmental problem is that we have neglected to aggressively insist that rich, visually accessible language-learning environments in the schools be set up for Deaf students where they can learn both ASL and English as early as possible. In our current stale state of deaf education school programming, there is some fresh air. Dr. Steve Nover and his colleagues at the Center for ASL/English Bilingual Education and Research (CAEBER; http://www.nmsd.k12.nm.us/caeber/index.html) have set up state-of-the-art ASL/English bilingual professional development (in-service and preservice) that has spread to more than 15 state schools for the Deaf and to five universities with teacher preparation programs, leadership programs, and doctoral programs. Setting up these ASL/English linguistically rich environments is more difficult in the public schools, but not impossible. In a master's thesis, Melissa DeLana (2004) has reported about a medium-size ASL/English bilingual program that was successfully set up in Oklahoma. Connie Ferguson, the only Deaf director of a regional day school for the Deaf in Texas, has also set up bilingual programs in her deaf education programs in the Bryan–College Station school district (Andrews, Ferguson, Roberts, & Hodges, 1997). These bilingual day schools could be models for the nation in providing the standards for more visually accessible language-learning environments in the public schools. We need to dismantle and restructure these linguistically impoverished mainstream programs. Deaf children and youth need early access to Deaf culture and ASL/English bilingualism. If we don't set up these ASL/English bilingual environments, then we educators will continue in our perpetual state of willing suspension of disbelief that inclusion, mainstreaming, and monolingualism language policies are working. Jean F. Andrews Professor of Deaf Education Department of Communication Disorders and Deaf Education Lamar University Beaumont, TX References Andrews, J., Ferguson, C., Roberts, S., & Hodges, P. (1997). What's up Billy Jo? Deaf children and bilingual-bicultural instruction in east-central Texas. American Annals of the Deaf, 142(1), 16-25. Google Scholar DeLana, M. (2004). The impact of ASL/English bilingual education on public school students who are deaf and/or hard of hearing. Unpublished master's thesis, Lamar University, Beaumont, TX. Miller, T. (2001). Forensic issues of Deaf offenders. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Lamar University, Beaumont, TX. [End Page 296] Copyright © 2006 Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools and Programs for the Deaf

Examining Interactions across Language Modalities: Deaf Children and Hearing Peers at School

Deaf youth easily become communicatively isolated in public schools, where they are in a small minority among a majority of hearing peers and teachers. This article examines communicative strategies of deaf children in an American "mainstream " school setting to discover how they creatively manage their casual communicative interactions with hearing peers across multimodal communicative channels, visual and auditory. We argue that unshared sociolinguistic practices and hearing‐oriented participation frameworks are crucial aspects of communicative failure in these settings. We also show that what look like "successful" conversational interactions between deaf and hearing children actually contain little real language and few of the complex communication skills vital to cognitive and social development. This study contributes to understanding the social production of communicative isolation of deaf students and implications of mainstream education for this minority group.

Issues in the sexual molestation of deaf youth.

An overview is provided of issues involved in sexual abuse in schools (as well as the general problem of child molestation in society), some characteristics of pedophiles and hebephiles, and data on how sexual molesters are dealt with by the criminal justice system. Specific information is provided on how sexual abuse becomes an issue in schools for children who are deaf, what can be done to prevent it, and symptoms to look for in identifying deaf children who are being victimized.

Residential psychiatric treatment of emotionally disturbed deaf youth.

A survey of the literature on emotional disturbance in deaf youth is followed by presentation of data on a sample of 58 deaf children and adolescents who were patients at the Tampa Bay Academy, a residential treatment facility serving both hearing and deaf youth with serious psychological disturbances. These 58 patients were compared to a hearing sample of 168 patients on key variables such as admitting symptoms, diagnoses, substance abuse, aggressive and assaultive behaviors, and sexual abuse. A startling and significant finding was that all of the deaf children admitted at age 12 years or younger had strong or confirmed indications of sexual abuse. Deaf adolescents had an 85% rate of strong or confirmed indications of sexual abuse. A list and brief description of residential care facilities serving deaf youth in the United States and Canada is reviewed. Only 8 were found that provided specialized services to deaf youth. Of those 8, only the National Deaf Academy, Mount Dora, FL, provided exclusive mental health and residential care to deaf persons.

Attitudes toward occupations for deaf youth in Sweden.

The study investigated the expressed advice of parents, teachers, and Deaf community leaders regarding careers for deaf students in Sweden. The research was conducted: (a) in a country where consensus has been achieved on recognition and accommodation of the educational needs of deaf students; (b) in a city with a very high concentration of deaf individuals, a continuum of educational facilities, and support for deaf students ranging from preschool through college; and, (c) in a community with a strong and active deaf organization and parent organization. The authors found that, despite many advances in the country, communication in the language of the greater society is a potent factor in limiting occupational possibilities for the Deaf.

Developing a tobacco survey for deaf youth.

Formidable barriers hinder use of standard data collection methods among deaf youth. Culturally and linguistically sensitive data collection strategies are needed to identify the unmet health and programming needs of this population. Unfortunately, researchers often fail to describe the issues involved in developing such targeted methods. The authors describe development of a culturally appropriate data collection instrument for a study of tobacco-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among deaf youth. The instrument uses interactive multimedia technology to administer a questionnaire translated into the primary languages used by the Deaf. The procedures taken to accommodate this technology to these languages and to Deaf culture are described. This process yielded useful insights with respect to data collection not only among the Deaf, but among other frequently overlooked and underserved populations as well.

Loneliness and Social Isolation in the Work Place for Deaf Individuals During the Transition Years: A Preliminary Investigation

This study is a first attempt to examine the experience of loneliness and social isolation for young adults who are deaf. It was hypothesized that these factors play a significant role in job retention and effective workplace functioning for individuals who are deaf or who have special communication needs and that social integration difficulties could result in poor vocational and psychological outcomes. This study found that communication barriers in the workplace create social difficulties and affect the performance of people who are deaf. Strategies utilized for coping with isolation and for improving integration into the workplace are described and recommendations for future research and intervention with deaf youth are offered.

Learning Disability, Neuropsychology, and Deaf Youth: Theory, Research, and Practice

Historically, there have been a variety of perspectives regarding the impact of deafness on the development of intellect, learning, and brain organization in prelingually deaf children. In 1960, for example, Myklebust proposed that auditory or any odier sensory deprivation leads to limitations on deaf people's experience and thus deprives them of information critical for normal psychological functioning. In his view, the absence of sensation alters the integration of information and the functioning of other abilities, thus leading to a differently constituted experience. Such alterations' were seen as occurring naturally and unknowingly, affecting deaf people's perception, conception, imagination, and thought. Myklebust's perspective unfortunately was linked to a broader view of deaf people as not only different but also cognitively deficient relative to hearing people. In a large number of studies, deaf and hearing subjects were compared on measures designed for and normed on hearing populations without consideration of communication needs or the possible effects of early language deprivation in hearing households. While deaf people as a group often did score lower on such measures, there were multiple confounding factors that could have explained the differences without having to assume any inherent deficiencies in the deaf populations' intellectual or cognitive functioning (Greenberg & Kusche, 1989). Deaf people, in fact, have been