Transition for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students: A Blueprint for Change

The large and growing number of deaf and hard-of-hearing adults who are "low-functioning deaf" (LFD), the unmet needs of many young people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and the continuing high rates of dropping out argue for a change in secondary programming for multiply disabled deaf and hard-of-hearing students and for others who are at risk of becoming LFD as adults. The LFD designation refers to youth and adults who read at very low levels, whether or not they have a second disability in addition to hearing impairment. This article reviews research related to transition for adolescents with disabilities as well as those who are deaf or hard of hearing. It then offers a case for change, one that, for the United States, represents a poignant return to a time past.     

National survey on telephone services and products. The views of deaf and hard-of-hearing people

A national study of 128 deaf and hard-of-hearing adults aged 18 to 70 years found that they are willing to pay as much as $15 per month for new telephone-based information services, in part because they are frustrated with what they regard as inadequate access to the nation's telecommunications network. The services they most want are "enhanced 911," fire, police, and other life and safety services. A majority wants the telecommunications network equipped with speech recognition capabilities as soon as the state-of-the-art permits, so that they can gain full access to network-based services. These findings suggest that changes in the national telecommunications policy might enhance the lives of deaf and hard-of-hearing adults. Policy changes might also permit them, as well as younger deaf Americans, to benefit more from the recently enacted Americans with Disabilities Act and to benefit more from other rights and services promoting access to work, education, and independent living.     

Deaf and hard of hearing Americans' instant messaging and e-mail use: a national survey

An online survey of 884 deaf and hard of hearing adults asked about their current and past use of communication technologies, notably TTY, telecommunications relay services, e-mail, and instant messaging (IM). Results showed that respondents were using e-mail and IM far more than TTY and relay services. The study participants virtually all had e-mail and IM at home. In fact, about one quarter had a high-speed ("broadband") connection at home. While the vast majority also had and used e-mail at work, just 1 in 3 had IM at his or her place of employment. The findings have several implications. Most important for educators is that strong reading and writing skills are essential if adults who are deaf or hard of hearing are to take advantage of today's communications technologies. Another conclusion is that some workers who are deaf or hard of hearing appear to face discrimination in employment because office policies forbid the use of a highly effective reasonable accommodation, instant messaging.     

Winter is Coming: Forecasting the Impact of edTPA on Black Teachers and Teachers of Color

This article traces how high-stakes teacher exams have shaped the career entry opportunities for Black teachers and makes recommendations for the emerging era of high-stakes performances exams brought about by the edTPA. We begin our analysis in the 1980s and the testing for competencies movement during which scholars critiqued the rising use of high-stakes standardized licensure exams as gatekeepers into teacher education programs. Although the most severe predictions from this crisis moment did not come to fruition, we ask what it can tell us today about exams like the edTPA and how it may impact Black teachers. We outline three findings from the emerging edTPA scholarship in response to this question: (1) mixed and alarming results from edTPA racial bias reviews, (2) institutional resources and unequal distribution, and (3) how the exam may constrain or permit justice. We make recommendations for teacher education programs and for scholars conducting research at the intersection of edTPA and racial bias.     

Pigeons and rats observe signals of when but not where food will occur

Pigeons and rats were exposed to a mixed variable-time extinction schedule of reinforcement. During the variable-time component of the schedule, response-independent food was delivered at either a left or a right feeder. The animals were allowed to perform observing responses to produce either stimuli paired with the component of the mixed schedule that was in effect (temporal information) or stimuli paired with the feeder that might deliver food (spatial information). Only stimuli conveying temporal information reinforced observing. This result contradicts a prediction of the “information hypothesis” of observing, but is consistent with various conditioned-reinforcement interpretations of observing.     

Captured by the Discourse? Issues and concerns in researching ‘parental choice‘

In this paper we look at the relationship between political, cultural and economic change, the ‘position’ of parental choice in the various policy texts (in particular, it's centrality to The Parent's Charter) and what we have termed the context of practice (Bowe et al., 1992). In particular, we raise some issues and concerns that arise from research to date, in terms of their methodologies, their analysis and their representations of choice. It is the failure, in all these respects, to consider the complexity and inter‐relatedness of choice‐making and political and economic change that gives rise to our concerns. We tentatively suggest a heuristic device, the metaphor of landscapes of choice, that we think might help us to explore the relationships between the various policy contexts, whilst recognising the embeddedness of the research process in precisely these contexts.