deaf awareness minibites

Deaf students Thomas Tallis

• 24 deaf students in the school

• What does deaf mean?

• Any hearing loss

• Impaired access to speech sounds

• Most deaf students have additional needs

Myths

• Deaf students can all understand fluent British Sign Language

• Deaf students can read the material• Subtitles provide full access

Important to know

• 95% of deaf students have hearing parents and therefore no natively fluent language model at home

• Most deaf students have disordered language skills• Most deaf students have working memory problems• Most deaf students have delayed socio emotional

development

Reading in Deaf students

• Seminal Study by Conrad in 1979• Half of deaf school leavers leave school at 16

years with a reading age of 7 years (functionally illiterate)

• Less than 15% had a functional reading age (11 – 12 years)

• None had an age appropriate reading score• Lichtenstein 1998 repeated these results

Functional reading includes

• Newspapers• Emailing• MSN• Texting• Information at work• Leaflets• Road signs• Safety information• Food labels

• Higher incidence of mental health problems• Development of identity usually transitions in

secondary school as children develop a bi-cultural identity: deaf community and hearing community

What can I do to support deaf students?

• Planning in advance• Speak to the student not the staff supporting• Do not ask deaf children to copy or read large

amounts of text• Subtitle all clips including ‘You tube’, if you

give us notice we will try to help• Key words

Reading

• Urban regeneration: Improvements to housing, jobs , leisure and the environment in a town or city.

Regeneration in London 2012

in London 2012

Regeneration in London 2012

• One of the most positive outcomes of London winning the bid to host the London 2012 Olympic games is the amount of Urban regeneration that will take place. The Olympic park is a perfect example of Urban regeneration. The regeneration and development of the Lower Lea Valley in east London, the site for the Olympic Park, will:

Source of information

• A London 2012 Education resources : Linked to GCSE language levels

Highlighted words not in vocabulary

• One of the most positive outcomes of London winning the bid to host the London 2012 Olympic games and Paralympic games is the amount of Urban regeneration that will take place. The Olympic park is a perfect example of Urban regeneration. The regeneration and development of the Lower Lea Valley in east London, the site for the Olympic Park, will:

Misread words

• One of the most positive outcomes of London winning the bid to host the London 2012 Olympic games and Paralympic games is the amount of Urban regeneration that will take place. The Olympic park is a perfect example of Urban regeneration. The regeneration and development of the Lower Lea Valley in east London, the site for the Olympic Park, will:

–example examine

Meaning lost……

Words student did not understand in this piece

• Urban• Regeneration• Environment• Outcome• Host• Bid• Olympic• Paralympics• example

• Development• Speed up• During• Raise awareness• Amenities• Restore• Residents• Beyond• Activities• Take place

Vocab devt is disordered: Choose words for life

• Urban• Regeneration• Environment• Outcome• Host• Bid• Olympic• Paralympics• example

• Development• Speed up• During• Raise awareness• Amenities• Restore• Residents• Beyond• Activities• Take place

What the students say…….

• There are a lot of new words on my course.• Sometimes I know the word and can’t remember the sign.• Sometimes the word is signed to me but when I see the word

written down I can’t recognise it.• What helps you learn new words?• I will write down about 12 words. I like a picture of the sign

next to the word. I can sit and read and sign to myself, maybe each one five times and then I need to repeat this every day for two weeks and then in the end maybe I am ready to learn some more words.

Challenges to word learning

• May recognise the word but not have a solid meaning (semantic representation) of it

• Knows lots of empty words

• Using context to guess• Problem of visually similar

words• Difficulty of words whose

signs have more than one meaning

• May have poor phonological representations

• May be poor lip readers

The sign for all of these words is the same: context is used to understand

• probable• possible• probability• possibility• potential• can • could

Remember

• The students are individuals. These are broad explanations

• Keep expectations high but achievable

Expertise in DSC

• Come and ask us for support• We have a bank of resources• We are here to modify your lesson plans and

to work with you• Come and speak to us!