Jessica Scott, Ph.D., has an article published for the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education.
How does this publication help with your research goals and/or interests?
I am extremely interested in the language and literacy development of deaf children. This article combines both areas. The study examines whether students change their use of advanced linguistic features of American Sign Language (ASL) after a single viewing of a story from a deaf signing model. The results help us to better understand the role that a fluent signing model can play in how signing deaf children use language to recount stories.
Summarize your topic,
The article found that students were able to increase their use of depicting constructions and constructed action (advanced linguistic features of ASL) after viewing a video of a signing model only one time. This expands on prior research that shows benefits for children in viewing a deaf signing model many times. This has important implications especially for teachers of deaf children who are in environments where they may not have access to deaf adults in person. Providing opportunities to view videos may be one way of giving children the necessary linguistic modeling to become more fluent language users.
Are there others to credit for the work on the article?
Jennifer Beal, Ph.D. (a graduate of our program) and Ms. Kelly Spell.