Psychology and Human Development

Deafness & Education International, 2004

University Park Press eBooks, 1982

2009

The American Deaf community for several decades has been involved in sometimes complicated and often contested ways of defining what it means to be Deaf. It is our thesis that the processes of identity construction and the recent discourse of Deaf identity are not unique phenomena at all but echo the experience of other embedded cultural groups around the world, particularly those that are stressed by the assertion of hegemony over them by others. We turn to 2 particular theorists, Jose Martı ́ and W. E. B. DuBois, to help us un-derstand both the dilemmas that Deaf people face and the possible solutions that they propose. This article argues that identities are constructed not just within Deaf communities but within the social contexts in which Deaf communities are embedded. This article discusses how Deaf people’s identities are

American Annals of the Deaf, 2020

's contributions to social research shifted paradigms by constructing now-foundational theories of teaching, learning, language, and their educational interactions. This article contextualizes a nearly forgotten, century-old research corpus, The Fundamentals of Defectology. Drawing on Defectology, two dialectic arguments are developed, which synthesize Vygotsky's corpus, then juxtaposed it against contemporary theories and evidence. The first describes three principles of Vygotsky's framework for deaf pedagogy: positive differentiation, creative adaptation, and dynamic development. The second posits five propositions about deaf development: the biosocial proposition, the sensory delimitation-and-consciousness proposition, the adapted tools proposition, the multimodal proposition, and the conflict proposition. By leveraging Vygotsky's optimism in response to the absorbing and difficult challenges of experimental, methodological, and theoretical research about deafness, including the psychology of disability and special methods of pedagogy, both arguments constitute a future-oriented call to action for researchers and pedagogues working in deaf education today.

Department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2024

EDDE 425 critically overviews trends, issues, demographics, and social justice-oriented practices in deaf education. Analysis focuses on the historical, legal, biological, and social contexts that impact the linguistic, educational, and psychological development of deaf students from diverse backgrounds. Course topics include: bi/multilingual teaching and learning, and issues of social in/equality as related to power, politics, race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, dis/ability, and other categories of difference.

American Annals of the Deaf, 2020

L.S. Vygotsky's contributions to social research shifted paradigms by constructing nowfoundational theories of teaching, learning, language, and their interactions in education. This manuscript contextualizes and elucidates a nearly-forgotten, century-old component of Vygotskian deaf education research. The Fundamentals of Defectology compiles decades of Vygotsky's experimental, methodological, and theoretical research about deafness, the psychology of disability, and special methods of pedagogy. Drawing on Defectology, two arguments are developed using the method of dialectics; they first synthesize Vygotsky's deaf research corpus, then juxtapose it against contemporary theories and evidence. The first argument describes three principles that exemplify Vygotsky's optimistic framework for deaf pedagogy: positive differentiation, creative adaptation, and dynamic development. The second posits five propositions about deaf development, including: the biosocial proposition, the sensory delimitation-and-consciousness proposition, the adapted tools proposition, the multimodal proposition, and finally the conflict proposition. By leveraging Vygotsky's characteristic optimism in response to the absorbing and difficult challenges of deaf pedagogy and deaf research methodologies, these arguments constitute a future-oriented call to action for researchers and pedagogues working in deaf education today.

Deafness & Education International, 2020

Dolentium Hominum

The psychological world of deaf people… what is it? What type of world? A world of visual language, culture, education, psychology, sociology, biased testing, pathological perspectives, oppression, prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, linguistic centrism, audism, solidarity, customs, traditions, families, abuse, addiction, faith, amazing stories, authentic love, identity, a deaf identity, and simply stated: being deaf is a way of being. In viewing the psychological world of deaf people, we will explore various perspectives in this world; deaf people’s perspectives on deaf people; deaf people’s perspectives on hearing people; and hearing people’s perspectives on deaf people. As we begin this exploration into the psychological world of deaf people, basic information needs to be outlined; i.e. deaf versus compared to Deaf, pathological/medical versus culture/ cultural, and ethnocentrism and audism.

This article critically examines a multimodal film produced by Rachelle Harris, entitled “Seizing Academic Power: Creating Deaf Counternarratives.” (2015). The film is presented in American Sign Language, accompanied with English subtitles and graphic/design (aesthetic) elements, which are employed to critique the 20th century model of deaf education as exemplified by Myklebust’s 1964 “The Psychology of Deafness.” Harris’ film is designed to inform individuals in the Deaf community about harmful metanarratives that have pervaded the educational contexts for deaf people throughout the past 50 years. Harris’ film explores the concepts of producing deaf counternarratives as a strategy to gain academic power and assert cultural autonomy. In this exploratory study, two different researchers offer complimentary analyses that explore multidisciplinary theoretical lenses to decompose this film artifact. These orientations include: culturally relavent pedagogy, multimodal communication, deaf epistemology theory, and deaf gain theory (Ladsen- Billings, 1995; Kress, 2010; Paul and Moores, 2012; Bauman and Murray, 2013). Our findings reveal that our unique researcher positionalities, as well as the distinct theoretical orientations we employ affect the analysis. Blair and Skyer chose different, though related theoretical frameworks that align with their perspectives regarding teaching deaf students as presented by Harris (2015) in her film. Blair views the film through the lens of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), as exemplified by Ladsen-Billings (1995a; 1995b). CRP is based on the notion that all students are capable of academic success, all can gain and maintain cultural competence, and all can develop critical consciousness within the classroom. This framework focused on the teacher’s conception of self and others, as well as the teacher’s conceptions of knowledge as a basis to analyze the facilitation of student learning, especially in a marginalized group, in this case, Deaf culture. Skyer draws from an eclectic array of post structural education and communications research to explore the ideological and aesthetic dimensions of this artifact of teaching. This approach uses Larson (2014), Ranciere (2013), and Kress (2010), among others, to explore the multimodal, multisensory avenues for teaching as exemplified by Harris’ (2014) film. This orientation reveals some of the ontological flaws of the 20th Century model of deaf education. It reveals the need for radical equipotentiality in all deaf educative contexts, and offers new ways to explore the political and aesthetic dimensions of teaching deaf students. This interpretive, qualitative study employed specific analytic approaches in order to offer a complex picture of contemporary deaf education issues and dilemmas. We situate deaf studies in the 21st Century and explore recent philosophical “turns” of deaf education by investigating it historically and conceptually through hybrid empirical methods. Data were collected through several structured viewings of Harris’ film. Data were analyzed using process coding, reflective writing, and memo coding. Our study concludes with implications for further study in the disparate domains of a new 21st Century deaf education, including (but not limited to) pedagogy, discourse, ideology, and aesthetics.

2013

Points of Interest • In a current early intervention context, young Deaf children are faced with conflicting messages about learning signed and spoken languages. • We argue that a social relational model of Deaf childhood is appropriate. This model tries to account for differences in every child and in his/her communities. • The first author's research describes a program for parents and young Deaf children. The parents learned how to sign children's books. • The research shows how a social relational model fits with the lives of different Deaf children.

Dissensus in Deaf Research: Scaffolding the Conflicts of Theory and Practice, 2019

Value conflicts surrounding deafness—disagreements about senses, cognition, language, and power—obscure research which connect them. The lack of empirical theory about how and why deaf educators teach constrains researchers and educators who seek to reform the field and exacerbates problems related to deaf learning. Researchers and pedagogues invested in deaf education are divided by conflicts of value. Axiological differences result in "a nearly insurmountable gap between researchers and practitioners" (Easterbrooks, 2017, p. 25 in Cawthon & Garberoglio, 2017). This presentation offers a critical synthesis of the literature on deaf education pedagogy research and focuses on synthesizing issues related to visual discourses and phenomena in teaching practice. Themes emerging from the study evince crucial ruptures in the values, ethics, and aesthetics of deaf research which preclude progress. Conflicts arise from diverse professional orientations, disciplinary foci, and paradigmatic variations but are united by the common problems of teaching deaf students and the promising potentiality of deaf­-centric research on visual pedagogy. In the early 1900s, Vygotsky described deaf pedagogy as unsystematic and implored change. One hundred years later, Swanwick and Marschark (2010) call our work unsuccessful. Dissensus is manifest in theory’s obstruction; however, dissensus gives clarity relative to the agonistic problems of axiology—the ethics and aesthetics of power in deaf education. Deaf educational theorists need to develop ways to decipher the how and why of deaf visual pedagogy (Cawthon & Garberglio, 2017; p. ix). Deaf social theory enhances how researchers understand vision in learning; however, in spite of advancement, deaf pedagogy theory is underdeveloped (Lang, et al. 1993; Thoutenhoofd, 2010). By synthesizing the following concepts (deaf axiology, the biosocial paradigm, deaf visual pedagogy) I address the following problems: There is no contemporary theory to describe the unified deaf biosocial ecology, no extant theory to productively analyze conflict on vision, or foreground axiology in decision­making, or centralize vision as a strategy to transform power (Bauman & Murray, 2014; Beal­Alvarez, 2017; Fernandes & Myers, 2010; Friedner 2010). There is no systematic theory, no standard toolkit of analytic techniques, or generalized empirical approach. Cawthon and Garberoglio (2017) summarize: “without an adequate research base, there cannot be effective practice. Without an understanding of the needs in deaf education, there cannot be research that supports effective practice." (p. xii). This proposal directly works toward the year's theme: "Connecting the Dots." The project focuses on clarifying the issues that disconnect researchers from teachers and from deaf individuals and society more broadly. Introducing the concept of "Deaf Axiology" "Deaf visual pedagogy" and "the biosocial paradigm of deaf research" to the established corpus of deaf­centric philosophy on teaching (e.g. deaf epistemology and deaf ontology, deaf gains in research on teaching) allows for the development of new critical lexicon to productively address and resolve longstanding conflicts of our field. The ultimate goals of the project include opening trans­-disciplinary conversations among stakeholders and enhancing the practices of deaf education teacher-­educators. This study is primarily based on a critical literature review which preceded a two-­year multi-­method (grounded theory and case study) qualitative study (which is in progress at present).

2019

A PsychO'Sodal Aspects of Deafness course is frequently offered to hearing students in programs focusing on education^ counseling^ or social work with the deaf. At the National Technical Institute for the Deaf^ it is offered to deaf students at the undergraduate level. The goals of the course are to enhance understanding of the impact of deafness on educational, psychological, emotional, and social development. The focus of this course is directed both to the cognitive domain, and the affective domain in terms of the expression and imderstanding of feelings, attitudes and values associated with the impact of hearing loss on the lives of deaf students and significant others within their social milieu. Course content, project description, and effective approaches for implementing this type of course in high schools, colleges and other programs serving deaf students are presented.

PsycCRITIQUES, 2009

American Annals of the Deaf, 1986

2020

is a 5-year-old student with significant physical and cognitive disabilities, and she is deaf**. She attends a kindergarten class in her neighborhood school with hearing students with disabilities and a one-to-one assistant who signs. Annie's parents use sign language with her, and they've provided her with cochlear implants in the hopes that she will be able to access and acquire spoken language, too. Though she doesn't say many words that other people understand, Annie uses her voice and many sign approximations to make her needs and wants known. She is also learning to use a Picture Exchange Communication System with her signs to make her wants and needs clearer. She is engaged with and responsive to her environment. Frankie* is a 10-year-old fourth grade student with Down syndrome, and he is hard of hearing. He uses spoken language to express himself; he has hearing aids but doesn't always use them. Frankie sits in his local school class and appears engaged; however, for several years he hasn't made much progress on his Individualized Education Program goals. He reads simple words and enjoys looking at pictures in books. Frankie doesn't have many friends, and his parents have been unimpressed with his progress. He receives itinerant services from a teacher of the deaf who serves him in a classroom for hearing students with moderate disabilities. The itinerant teacher of the deaf doesn't know much sign language.