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PubMed1996

Professional psychology and deaf people. The emergence of a discipline.

This article depicts obstacles and opportunities that face students and consumers who are deaf and who interface with the profession of psychology. The rapid evolution of scholarship, specialized education and service programs, and related professional endeavors regarding psychology and deaf individuals is described. The emergence of a field of professional psychology and deaf people as a discipline in its own right is posited. Professional standards and ethics in this emerging discipline are discussed, especially those pertaining to fluency in American Sign Language (ASL) and to the accessibility of deaf people to the profession of psychology as well as to the services of the profession. The potential for the American Psychological Association to further or hinder this emerging discipline and the advancement of all psychologists with disabilities are considered.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Issues in providing mental health services to hearing-impaired persons.

Interest in the mental health service needs of hearing-impaired persons has expanded over the past 35 years, but the availability and accessibility of clinical services have lagged behind developments in research. Despite federal mandates, deaf Americans' psychiatric and psychosocial needs remain profoundly underserved. The author provides an overview of deaf culture and the deaf community and discusses issues in communication, including use of American Sign Language and interpreters in clinical settings. Diagnostic considerations, clinical assessment strategies, and inpatient, outpatient, educational, and early intervention treatment strategies are explored, and the needs of special populations, including mentally ill offenders, patients with multiple disabilities, and persons with hearing loss in later life are examined.

Combined Modality Therapy↗
PubMed1995

Hypnosis with signing deaf and hearing subjects.

Historically hypnosis with deaf people has been an underutilized intervention as the deaf were assumed not to be responsive to hypnotic suggestion. Recent research has begun to challenge these assumptions. Matthews and Isenberg (in press) compared the hypnotic responsiveness of deaf and hearing subjects on the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, form C (SHSS:C) all of whom received the hypnotic suggestions via sign language. Those results supported the notion that deaf subjects are capable of responding to hypnotic suggestion and may be as hypnotically responsive as hearing subjects. The purpose of the present article is to examine the similarities and differences of responses between deaf and hearing subjects to the individual items of the SHSS:C and compare those responses to the SHSS:C norms.

Deafness↗
PubMed1983

The use of nonvocal communication techniques with autistic individuals.

Studies reporting the use of sign languages and symbol systems with autistic children and young people are reviewed. The studies suggest that signs and symbols can be used in communication by individuals who are above and below the age of five, mute and mentally handicapped. The communication skills developed may, in some cases, be complex, and speech may develop in the context of sign or symbol programmes. However, problems concerned with the description of subjects, methods and outcome of studies mean that many conclusions can only be supported tentatively by existing data.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Recall of order information by deaf signers: phonetic coding in temporal order recall.

To examine the claim that phonetic coding plays a special role in temporal order recall, deaf and hearing college students were tested on their recall of temporal and spatial order information at two delay intervals. The deaf subjects were all native signers of American Sign Language. The results indicated that both the deaf and hearing subjects used phonetic coding in short-term temporal recall, and visual coding in spatial recall. There was no evidence of manual or visual coding among either the hearing or the deaf subjects in the temporal order recall task. The use of phonetic coding for temporal recall is consistent with the hypothesis that recall of temporal order information is facilitated by a phonetic code.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Deaf and hard-of-hearing clients: some legal implications.

At least one of every 16 Americans has some degree of hearing loss and may use a variety of communication modes, including spoken English and American Sign Language. With the passage of various federal laws, most notably the Americans with Disabilities Act, social services agencies will need to become more aware of the needs of their deaf and hard-of-hearing clients. This article reviews federal legislation and statutes and their impact on service and legal programs. Legislative mandates for the use of assistive devices and interpreters in various settings are discussed. As service providers and advocates, social workers need to ensure that their own services adequately meet legal and ethical obligations and that the profession advocates for other agencies to do the same.

Deafness↗
PubMed1995

Deafness in childhood: 2. Are deaf children getting the education they need?

Under the 1981 Education Act, deaf children should be assessed for a "Statement of Educational Needs". Deaf children under school age are supported by a peripatetic teacher for the deaf. There are different schools of thought about the best methods for teaching deaf children. Systems include the oral/aural, "Total Communication" and sign language methods Speech and language therapy is important but provision in schools is patchy and there may be disputes about whether it comes under the education or health budget. Ideally, each health district should have a District Children's Hearing Assessment Unit, which accepts self-referrals as well as referrals from professionals. The National Deaf Children's Society recommends that each child should have a key worker to co-ordinate the various services. At present the quality of schooling and support a deaf child receives is patchy and depends on the luck of where the parents happen to live.

Child↗
PubMed1996

Silence is liberating: removing the handcuffs on grammatical expression in the manual modality.

Grammatical properties are found in conventional sign languages of the deaf and in unconventional gesture systems created by deaf children lacking language models. However, they do not arise in spontaneous gestures produced along with speech. The authors propose a model explaining when the manual modality will assume grammatical properties and when it will not. The model argues that two grammatical features, segmentation and hierarchical combination, appear in all settings in which one human communicates symbolically with another. These properties are preferentially assumed by speech whenever words are spoken, constraining the manual modality to a global form. However, when the manual modality must carry the full burden of communication, it is freed from the global form it assumes when integrated with speech--only to be constrained by the task of symbolic communication to take on the grammatical properties of segmentation and hierarchical combination.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Making adult education accessible to the deaf. A model of direct instructor communication in ASL.

The purpose of this study was to develop a model of direct communication in American Sign Language for mainstreamed adult education courses. The model uses an individual instruction format with limited lecture time. Data were collected for 23 students (12 hearing and 11 deaf) newly enrolled in a mainstreamed word processing class. They were compared on average hours required to complete an exercise, average rates of attendance, and weekly drop rate. Attendance and drop rates were compared for new and returning students in the mainstreamed class (34 students) and 25 hearing students from a nonmainstreamed class. In addition, the average number of hours required to complete the exercises was compared for 10 new hearing students from the mainstreamed class and 11 new hearing students from the nonmainstreamed class. No significant differences were found in any of the comparisons. The study recommends further research to compare this Direct Instructor Communication Model with other more traditional deaf education models.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

On recency and echoic memory.

In short-term memory, the tendency for the last few (recency) items from a verbal sequence to be increasingly well recalled is more pronounced if the items are spoken rather than written. This auditory recency advantage has been quite generally attributed to echoic memory, on the grounds that in the auditory, but not the visual, mode, sensory memory persists just long enough to supplement recall of the most recent items. This view no longer seems tenable. There are now several studies showing that an auditory recency advantage occurs not only in long-term memory, but under conditions in which it cannot possibly be attributed to echoic memory. Also, similar recency phenomena have been discovered in short-term memory when the items are lip-read, or presented in sign-language, rather than heard. This article provides a partial review of these studies, taking a broad theoretical position from which these particular recency phenomena are approached as possible exceptions, to a general theory according to which recency is due to temporal distinctiveness. Much of the fresh evidence reviewed is of a somewhat preliminary nature and it is as yet unexplained by any theory of memory. The need for additional, converging experimental tests is obvious; so too is the need for further theoretical development. Several alternative theoretical resolutions are mentioned, including the possibility that enhanced recency may reflect movement, from sequentially occurring stimulus features, and the suggestion that it may be associated with the primary linguistic mode of the individuals concerned. But special weight is attached to the conjecture that all these recency phenomena might be accounted for in terms of distinctiveness or discriminability. On this view, the enhanced recency effects observed with certain modes, including the auditory mode, are attributed to items possessing greater temporal discriminability in those modes.

Auditory Perception↗
PubMed1980

Culture and deafness in a Maya Indian village.

Over the years, the question of psychosocial adjustment among the deaf has attracted a great deal of attention. Pioneer work by Levine (1960, 1963); Rainer, Altshuler, and Kallmann (1963); Myklebust (1964); Rainer and Altshuler (1968); Grinker (1969); Mindel and Vernon (1971); and Schlesinger and Meadow (1972), to mention but a few, has aided our understanding of how the deaf adjust to the stress which their handicap imposes upon them. We know a great deal less, however, about the deaf in other societies. Altable (1947); Altshuler, Vollenweider, and Rainer (1971); Youniss (1974); and Sarfaty and Katz (1978) are among the handful of references which appear, and they all deal with urban populations. Kuschel (1973) considers a single deaf man on Rennell Island, in Polynesia, but his concern is primarily the sign language devised by this ingenious man. As far as I am aware, only Woodward (1978) and his associates have an ongoing program for the investigation of deafness in a nonurban society (Washabaugh, Woodward, and DeSantis, 1978). To neglect the way in which other societies handle these problems is to deprive ourselves of a rich source of comparative data. It is also to avoid a strenuous challenge, for the methodology that is appropriate for use in literate, urban societies may have little applicability in a tribal or peasant group. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to present preliminary data on a group of profoundly, congenitally deaf Maya Indians of southeastern Mexico, with the aim of suggesting hypotheses which may be investigated by future research. The fieldwork upon which the report is based, however, was not part of a purposeful attempt to study the deaf of the village in question; rather, the village was selected as part of the Maya Film Project, directed by Hubert Smith, and at the time the project took to the field the fieldworkers had no idea that the village eventually chosen would contain a high number of deaf inhabitants.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

The effects of recoding and presentation format on recency and suffix effects.

The primary linguistic theory of Shand and Klima (1981) hypothesizes that stimuli that cannot be directly processed without recoding are not in the primary linguistic mode of the subject and thus should lead to lesser recency and associated suffix effects. In three experiments, different normal hearing subjects learned to pair American Sign Language (ASL) stimuli, visual "quasivocables" (QVs), word-like letter strings, and auditory QVs with common English words. In the first experiment, the subjects were given sequences of ASL or QV stimuli and required to recall the associated words in strict serial order. In two other experiments involving auditory and visual presentation, respectively, subjects who had never been given paired associate training were required to recall the English words that had previously been associated with the ASL and QV stimuli, in a standard suffix paradigm. The results showed recency and suffix effects to be present only with auditorily presented QVs and words. Contrary to the predictions of the primary linguistic hypothesis, greater recency and larger suffix effects were present with the auditory QVs than with the auditory words, although the QVs were not primary linguistic and the task involved forced recoding. Previous results showing recency with ASL stimuli in normal subjects were not replicated. It is concluded that recency and suffix effects are not related either to the primary linguistic mode of the subject or to stimulus recoding, as we and Shand and Klima have defined them.

Attention↗
PubMed1993

The health status and health care utilization of deaf and hard-of-hearing persons.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether health habits, self-reported health status, and communication with physicians play a role in the known altered health care utilization patterns of deaf and hard-of-hearing persons. DESIGN: A cross-sectional survey. Respondents were given the choice of completing either a self-administered written survey or an American Sign Language interview-administered survey. POPULATION: Eighty-seven deaf and hard-of-hearing members of various organizations serving this population in southeastern Michigan and 88 hearing patients from a family practice clinic in the same area. RESULTS: Deaf and hard-of-hearing persons visit physicians more frequently (P = .01), have a lower incidence of ever smoking tobacco (P < .0006) and of alcohol use (P = .04), have more difficulties communicating with physicians (P < .001), have trouble understanding physicians (P < .001), and feel less comfortable with physicians (P < .001). Lower current tobacco use among deaf and hard-of-hearing persons was only seen in persons who were not educated beyond high school. Increased frequency of physician visits for deaf and hard-of-hearing persons was especially noticeable in the group of persons 60 years of age and older. Our finding that use of interpreters is associated with increased utilization and decreased understanding suggests deaf and hard-of-hearing patients presenting with interpreters warrant more focused attention from physicians. Reasons for seeing physicians did not explain the difference in frequency of physician visits between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Deaf and hard-of-hearing persons report a lower subjective health status and higher physician utilization, as well as substantial communication difficulties with physicians. They also report better health-related behaviors, namely less use of tobacco and alcohol. The use of interpreters did not decrease physician utilization or improve the understanding of physicians by these persons. Overall, our results underscore the fact that deaf and hard-of-hearing persons constitute a minority population that experiences considerable difficulties in the patient-physician relationship.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Categorical replies to categorical questions by cross-fostered chimpanzees.

The chimpanzees Washoe, Moja, Tatu, and Dar were reared under human cross-fostering conditions that included the use of American Sign Language (ASL) as the medium of two-way communication. In the course of everyday conversation they were asked, in signs, the Wh-questions that are typically asked of young children. In earlier studies, extensive samples showed a pattern of replies, most significantly a developmental sequence, that closely matched the pattern found in the replies of young children. Part 1 of this report is based on a special sample taken when Tatu was 63 months old and Dar was 56 months old, in which experimenters used a large pool of nameable objects, and asked a naming question and at least one descriptive question about the same object in the same context. Tatu and Dar replied to naming questions (WHAT THAT? or WHAT NAME THAT?) with signs that were nouns and to descriptive questions with signs that were modifiers: possessive pronouns for WHOSE THAT?, colors for WHAT COLOR THAT?, and materials for WHAT THAT MAKE FROM? Part 2 is a reanalysis of the Part 1 sample and several other samples of replies, demonstrating that even when their reply was incorrect, these chimpanzees usually replied with a sign from the category specified by the question. The continuities that biologists seek are continuities of laws, patterns of resemblance rather than overlapping data points. Results reported here add depth to the patterns demonstrated in earlier studies.

Animal Communication↗
PubMed1993

Hemispheric specialization for ASL signs and English words: differences between imageable and abstract forms.

American Sign Language (ASL) exhibits properties for which both hemispheres in hearing people show specialized functioning (linguistic vs spatial). To determine the laterality of processing ASL in the normal intact brain, ASL signs and nonsigns were presented to each visual half field of deaf signers for lexical decision. The English glosses for these signs were presented to hearing English speakers along with nonwords. Deaf ASL signers and hearing English speakers both showed a left hemisphere advantage for abstract lexical items. ASL signers showed a significant right hemisphere advantage for imageable signs, whereas English speakers exhibited no visual field effect for imageable words. This difference in brain laterality may reflect differences in the role of imagery in the two languages.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Signs as pictures and signs as words: effect of language knowledge on memory for new vocabulary.

The role of sensory attributes in a vocabulary learning task was investigated for a non-oral language. Deaf and hearing individuals, more or less skilled in the use of sign language, were asked to learn the English meanings of 22 invented signs which followed the rules of formation for signs in American Sign Language. Each sign stimulus was highly similar in formation to another sign in the set. It was expected that skilled signers would be less affected by this formational similarity because of their greater familiarity with the linguistic structure of sign language. Furthermore, it was suggested that skilled signers would form a visual-linguistic code for the signs while unskilled signers would produce a code from general visual-pictorial processes. These representation differences were expected to lead to qualitatively different error patterns in response to sign similarity. All expectations were confirmed. Skilled signers encoded invented signs in terms of linguistic structure, while unskilled individuals approached the signs as visual-pictorial events. Although both codes are sensory, one reflects linguistic abstraction, and the other does not.

Deafness↗
PubMed1995

Aphasic and parkinsonian signing: differences in phonological disruption.

Since movements of the articulators in sign, unlike in speech, are directly observable, we can investigate signing not only as linguistic behavior but also as motor behavior and directly contrast linguistic-representational and motor-execution disorders of signing. We compared the temporal sequencing characteristics (duration of segments, pausing, periods of change in handshape posture), intactness of distinctive features, and correct use of prosodic templates in three pairs of signers--two Deaf aphasic signers with posterior damage in the left hemisphere, two signers with Parkinson's disease, and two gender- and age-matched control signers. With respect to distinctive features, the aphasic signers exhibited selection errors in the American Sign Language (ASL) distinctive features system, while the Parkinsonian signers showed an intact distinctive feature inventory, but with disturbances in executing these features. The Parkinsonian signers, unlike the aphasic and control signers, showed marked disturbances in the temporal organization and coordination of what we argue are the two subsystems of the ASL sign stream--handshape and movement. The findings demonstrate a phonetic deficit in Parkinsonian signers, in contrast with aphasic signers who showed a disruption in the underlying representation and syllabification processes in the language.

Aged↗
PubMed1996

Competition on the face: affect and language in ASL motherese.

Research on early mother-child interaction has documented the crucial role affect plays in the content and modulation of early interactions. For hearing mothers, voice quality is considered to be the single most informative channel for affective expression. For deaf caregivers who use American Sign Language (ASL), the vocal channel is unavailable, and facial expression is critically important. Not only do facial behaviours signal affective and communicative information, but specific facial behaviours also function as obligatory grammatical markers. This multifunctionality of facial expression presents a dilemma for deaf parents signing to their toddlers as these two systems potentially compete for expression on the face. This study addresses how affective facial expression interacts with the linguistic forms in ASL motherese. To address this issue, we present data from both cross-sectional and longitudinal videotaped interaction from a total of 15 deaf mothers signing with their deaf toddlers (ages 0;9-2;8). Using Ekman & Friesen's Facial Action Coding System (FACS) (1978) we analysed child-directed maternal wh- questions. Because they are frequent in early discourse, and they require furrowed brows which also signal anger and puzzlement, wh- questions represent an ideal context to address the potential conflict of grammatical and affective facial expression in ASL motherese. Our studies indicate a shift from affect to grammar at about the child's second birthday. These findings shed new insight on the nature and possible role of input on the language acquisition process.

Affect↗