Deaf people communicating via SMS, TTY, relay service, fax, and computers in Australia

Despite the expansion of Deaf people's use of communication technology little is published about how they use electronic communication in their social and working lives and the implications for their concepts of identity and community. Australia is an ideal research base because the use of a range of technologies is widespread there. To gain access to a wide age range of people who identify as Deaf, members of the national organization, the Australian Association of the Deaf, were surveyed by mail. Results showed that Short Message Service (SMS), telephone typewriters (TTY), voice/TTY relay services, fax, and e-mail were used regularly. Deaf users are discerning of the purposes for which they use each method: SMS for social and personal interactions, TTY for longer communications and (via the relay service) with people and services without TTYs, fax for business and social contact, and computers for personal and business e-mails as well as Web browsing, accessing chat rooms, word processing, games, and study.     

Rethinking literacy: communication,representation and text

In this article I want to consider shifts in the use of the word ‘literacy’ and the implications for classroom work with texts, particularly the implications of the rapid and radical emergence of new relationships between different modes of representation and communication ( Kress, 2003; Raney, 1996; Unsworth, 2001 ). My concern is to argue that any approach to classroom literacy needs not only to recognise the new forms of text which children meet every day but to give multimodal texts a firm place in the curriculum. Further, if the text experience of young learners about these new combinations of modes of representation are to be realised in the classroom, then we need a framework for describing those texts. An approach which takes account of the rhetoric of design may be a way forward.     

Providing accessible services to minority ethnic deaf people: insights from a study in Alberta,Canada

Evidence suggests that minority ethnic people in general and minority ethnic deaf people (MEDP) in particular face numerous formidable obstacles in their attempts to gain access to services in the community. Deaf people from minority ethnic groups who have no English and/or American Sign Language (ASL) skills have particular difficulty gaining access to services. The study therefore was concerned with identifying some of the special needs and difficulties of MEDP who are trying to gain access to services in multiethnic communities. Qualitative approaches were used in data gathering and analysis. The results indicated six areas of difficulty for MEDP in gaining access to services: (a) communication barriers, (b) a lack of recognition of the needs of MEDP, (c) inappropriate service delivery and a lack of information on available services, (d) insufficient cultural sensitivity on the part of service providers, (e) issues of user involvement, and (f) a lack of specific programs for MEDP.     

基于固定电话网短消息传送协议分析及应用

分析说明了基于固定电话网短消息传送协议，对重点部分给出较详细解释，介绍了目前所做的工作。     

院系教学管理短信服务系统的设计与应用

当前高校普遍采用校、院二级管理体制和运行机制,日常的各项教学事务及其管理基本落在了高校的各个院系。为使院系办公室人员从通过手机短信进行通知、回复的繁杂教学管理事务中解放出来,设计了一个院系教学管理短信服务系统。该系统可以实现院系日常教学管理事务的短信通知与通知收到情况跟踪和各类教学信息的短信查询。由于该系统设计遵循和强调的是系统功能的通用性,因而该系统具有很强的实用性和广泛的应用性。     

Foreign language learning using e-mail in a task-oriented perspective: Interuniversity experiments in communication and collaboration

From 1988 to 1990 several collaborative cross-country intermediate French classes at Harvard and Stanford became one class. Students combined their efforts and insights in the accomplishment of a semester-long task, in most cases the publication of a student newspaper or magazine, using the electronic mail (e-mail) network to contact each other, elaborate their plans, and bring their projects to successful conclusion. Additional experiments of a similar nature took place between Harvard and the University of Pittsburgh (in the spring of 1990) and between Stanford and the University of Pittsburgh during 1991–1993. This paper suggests that this type of task-oriented learning through distance-communication is applicable at many different course levels and has considerable merit as an approach to teaching and learning. The key phases of this task-based model are presented along with technological information regarding computers and networks, as a guide to colleagues interested in pursuing similar lines of experimental teaching. Also included are samples of student messages, with their varied and often highly colorful discourse features, which attest to the motivation of students and reveal the strong personal investment made by the participants as they join hands across the miles in a productive, communication-based enterprise. The language and learning styles generated by technology and computers fully deserve closer investigation by researchers and teaching practitioners alike. The authors summarize the experiments, discuss assessment, and present research issues, concluding that good pedagogy and quality technology must share a vision of what can be accomplished in this rapidly evolving educational work place.The original collaborative project, on which this article is based, was undertaken at the suggestion of Professor Ralph M. Hester, Chair of the Department of French and Italian, Stanford University, and was funded by the Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning. The authors would also like to thank Francçoise Herrmann, Garth McCavana, and Louise Wills for their assistance.     

以图像和文本为掩护的隐蔽通信及其对抗技术

1IntroductionSince the early1990s,information hiding has be-come a hot topic attracting much attention from re-searchers in various fields including signal processing,cryptography and computer science,developers andsuppliers of multi media contents,and professionalsand other personnel who are concerned with informa-tion security[1].Two major areas are of the most inter-ests:digital watermarking and steganography.The purpose of digital watermarkingis to protect in-tellectual property rights of …     

Hearing parents and deaf children. Some perspectives on sign communication and service delivery.

The results of a survey of hearing parents' perceptions of their use of sign communication with their deaf children are reported. Survey questions addressed parental understanding and motivation in choosing a particular system of sign communication, input from professionals and deaf adults that was found to be most and least helpful, and parental assessment of their service needs. The results of the survey highlight the need for family focused services throughout the deaf child's development, and the discussion includes specific comments made by parents.     

Health care delivery and deaf people: practice, problems, and recommendations for change

Due to complex individual, interpersonal, and systemic factors, deaf and hard of hearing (d/hoh) individuals often receive inadequate, inappropriate, and unethical health care. This article begins with a review of the relevant socioeconomic and legal issues and the health status of d/hoh individuals. I then review health care starting with the patient's knowledge base, personal experiences, and understanding of health care relationships. I discuss the Deaf community's perspectives, providers' views about disability, communication between providers and deaf patients, and barriers encountered in health care delivery. The article concludes by assessing these factors' effects on health care delivery to d/hoh people, reviewing the ethical implications, and making recommendations for change.     

Exploring the social inclusion of deaf young people in mainstream schools,using their lived experience

Research suggests that children with hearing loss face a number of difficulties in the education system, including socially. Although there has been much research with the severe to profound deaf population there has been little research into the life experiences of children with moderate hearing loss who attend mainstream secondary schools. This research sought to examine the experiences of social inclusion for five young people with moderate hearing loss. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews in the young person’s school setting and were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Although each participant had distinctive experiences, there were a number of common themes that emerged indicating the factors that support social inclusion and those which create barriers for deaf children in schools. Implications for educational psychologists are considered and the limitations of the research are outlined.     

Everyone here speaks TXT: deaf people using SMS in Australia and the rest of the world

This article examines the extent to which Short Message Service (SMS) messages are breaking down communication barriers among deaf people and between deaf and hearing people. It is predicted that deaf texters will use SMS to increase the bonds between themselves in deaf communities, creating new opportunities to develop relationships, understanding, and intimacy with those not physically present. The most exciting question raised by this article is whether those kinds of relationships, understanding, and intimacy will develop to the same extent with hearing colleagues, friends, and intimates.     

Policy and practice in deaf education: views and experiences of teachers,and of young people who are deaf in Northern Ireland and Sweden

Due to the fact that the outcomes of education for most school leavers who are deaf in Northern Ireland are weak literacy skills and below average reading ages, a study was undertaken to investigate this situation. The views and experiences of teachers of children who are deaf, and of young people who are deaf in Northern Ireland, where oral and total communication forms of instruction are employed in their education were compared with those of Sweden where a sign bilingual is used in education, in the context of current policy and practice. The aim of the study was to find out if there are elements of Swedish policy and practice that could help resolve the situation for Northern Irish learners who are deaf. A qualitative approach was adopted via interviews with teachers of deaf and young people who were deaf in both countries. Findings are reported in relation to policy and practice in education, attitudes to deafness, status of sign language and other factors.     

The gap between guidelines, practice, and knowledge in interpreting services for deaf students

In this article, we examine the literature on educational interpreting for information related to optimal interpreting in school settings. this literature review is coupled with an examination of 15 guidelines for educational interpreters in school districts and programs for the deaf and hard of hearing across the United States. With this information, we then explore discrepancies between what guidelines recommend, what actually occurs in classrooms, and what research on the process of interpreting has found on the basis of three major areas of concern: the production of the message by the interpreter, the reception of the message by the student, and additional responsibilities required of interpreters working in school programs.     

Academic status of deaf and hard-of-hearing students in public schools: student, home, and service facilitators and detractors

We examined facilitators and detractors of academic success of 25 deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) students selected from a pool of 187 students attending general education classes and enrolled in a study of academic progress. Interviews with their teachers of DHH, general education teachers, principals, parents, interpreters, and students themselves were analyzed for child, family, and school facilitators and detractors of academic status. Facilitators included student self-advocacy and motivation, high family and school expectations, families' ability to help with homework, and good communication between professionals. Detractors included additional disabilities and poor family-school communication. A comparison of above- and below-average students revealed no single distinguishing facilitator or detractor. Each above-average student had many facilitators, whereas each below-average student had several significant detractors.     

Inter-letter spacing,inter-word spacing,and font with dyslexia-friendly features: testing text readability in people with and without dyslexia

Over the last years, several studies have suggested a possible link between dyslexia and deficits in low-level visual processing (e.g., excessive crowding). At the same time, specially designed “dyslexia-friendly” fonts appeared on the market. This class of fonts presents two main features: the particular graphic characteristics of the letterform designed to avoid confusion between similarly shaped letters, and wider inter-letter and inter-word spacing to limit crowding. The literature testing the efficacy of “dyslexia-friendly” fonts in improving reading accuracy and increasing reading speed is controversial. We evaluated the impact of letterform (with vs. without dyslexia-friendly graphic features), inter-letter spacing (standard vs. increased), and inter-word spacing (standard vs. increased) on reading accuracy and speed. Two groups of 64 children each, with and without dyslexia, read aloud 8 equivalent texts. The data collected failed to show any effect from the letterform. As regards spacing, the data showed that reading speed is impaired by an increase in inter-letter spacing not combined with an adequate increase in inter-word spacing.     

Parameters in television captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing adults: effects of caption rate versus text reduction on comprehension

Caption rate and text reduction are factors that appear to affect the comprehension of captions by people who are deaf or hard of hearing. These 2 factors are confounded in everyday captioning; rate (in words per minute) is slowed by text reduction. In this study, caption rate and text reduction were manipulated independently in 2 experiments to assess any differential effects and possible benefits for comprehension by deaf and hard-of-hearing adults. Volunteers for the study included adults with a range of reading levels, self-reported hearing status, and different communication and language preferences. Results indicate that caption rate (at 130, 180, 230 words per minute) and text reduction (at 84%, 92%, and 100% original text) have different effects for different adult users, depending on hearing status, age, and reading level. In particular, reading level emerges as a dominant factor: more proficient readers show better comprehension than poor readers and are better able to benefit from caption rate and, to some extent, text reduction modifications.