Learning Center

The Hearing Impaired Learner with Special Needs

Written by Robert E. Stepp, Jr. for the Symposium on Research and Utilization of Educational Media for Teaching the Deaf, held on March 31 and April 1-2, 1981, at the Nebraska Center for Continuing Education in Lincoln. This paper applauds the formation of the Individualized Education Program (IEP) which stipulates that special education and related services be specifically designed to meet the unique educational needs of a student with a disability. Suggests that variations on teaching methods should be incorporated into classroom instruction and that an assortment of teaching tools should be accessible to the teacher in accordance with a student's learning ability and level of interest. Three subtopics are areas of concern because of their implications to the education of the hearing impaired: (1) giftedness, (2) developmental disabilities, and (3) deaf-blindness. Also includes a list of symposium presenters.

ERIC Digests and Database Reports on Captioning Research Results (Nine Reports)

Included are nine ERIC reports: (1) "Closed-Captioned Prompt Rates: Their Influence on Reading Outcomes.," (2) "Closed Captioned TV: A Resource for ESL Literacy Education.," (3) "Closed Captioned Television for Adult LEP Literacy Learners.," (4) "ESL Literacy for a Linguistic Minority: The Deaf Experience.," (5) "Literacy Instruction Through Communicative and Visual Arts.," (6) "ESL Instruction for Learning Disabled Adults.," (7) "Using the Technology of Closed-Captioned Television to Teach Reading to Handicapped Students: Performance Reports," (8) "Using Captioned TV for Teaching Reading: FASTBACK 359," and (9) "The Effectiveness of Television Captioning on Comprehension and Preference."

Audio Description: Research Into Awareness Levels

An Examination of Twenty Literacy, Science, and Mathematics Practices Used to Educate Students Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

The results of a multistep process to begin identifying best practices in deaf education are presented. To identify current practices, a survey was conducted of the literature, the Web sites of professional organizations, and states' education Web sites, which yielded a number of commonly discussed practices. Ten of the more highly cited practices in literacy instruction and 10 of the more highly cited practices in science and mathematics instruction were identified for additional scrutiny. Hundreds of articles were examined to identify research support for the 20 identified practices. Some practices had adequate research support; others had minimal support. The authors identify each of the 20 practices, describe the practice, present a summary of the literature that was examined, and rate the usefulness of the knowledge base relative to a "best practice" designation.

Using Captioned Television to Improve the Reading Proficiency of Language Minority Students

This study by the National Captioning Institute analyzes whether comprehensible input in the form of captioned television might influence bilingual students' acquisition of vocabulary and conceptual knowledge in science. Results indicated that subjects who utilized closed captioning consistently outscored others in word knowledge as well as recall of science information. An analysis of word-related and video-related factors suggested that contexts that provided explicit information yielded higher vocabulary gains. Overall, this study documents the power of captioned television in the acquisition of literacy and conceptual knowledge for bilingual students.

Closed Captioned TV: A Resource for ESL Literacy Education

It has been four years since the publication of "Closed Captioned Television for Adult ESL Literacy Learners" (Spanos & Smith, 1990). Since that time, interest in the subject has been growing among teachers, students, and researchers. What is new in closed-captioned television (CCTV)? Recent technological, pedagogical, and regulatory developments have heightened awareness and appreciation of the medium's educational potential. This digest reports on new captioning legislation that increases access to captioned programs and on new research, technology, and uses of closed captions in the field of adult ESL.

Who's Watching? A Profile of the Blind and Visually Impaired Audience for Television and Video

The American Foundation for the Blind completed a study in 1997 of the viewing habits of blind and visually impaired people and the impact of video description. This version is accessible to blind and visually impaired people using screen readers as well as to people accessing the internet through slow connections. Limited print copies with complete graphics, available at no charge, can be requested from the American Foundation for the Blind Information Center.

Closed Captioning Standards and Protocol for Canadian English Language Broadcasters

This 2004 manual provides general guidelines on closed captioning in Canada. Begins with the Canadian Radio, Television, and Telecommunications Commission's (CRTC) regulatory standards for closed captioning. Explains how to correctly present the following caption types: off-line roll-up and pop-on, as well as on-line real-time, live-display, and teleprompter. Includes a chapter regarding the history of captioning in Canada.

How to get to Sesame Street: Multimedia Technology and Second Language Acquisition

"A running joke in this country is that television is as good as a babysitter." While there is bad programming out there, there is very good programming as well. And for ESL students, television can help to teach language, culture, and even reading skills. Students need assistance to develop active viewing habits, so that they not only watch shows but think about them as well. "Television is our most pervasive communication mode. We should not try to compete with it, rather we should harness its power to make it work for us . . ." Also overviews the options of using closed captioning, pointing out that in the early nineties it was estimated that some 40 percent of closed-captioning viewers were people who were learning English as a second language. Written by Katherine Latta, 2003.

Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers

The Case for Real Time Captioning in Classrooms

The inclusion of captions in a classroom dramatically increases a deaf or hard of hearing person's ability to comprehend the speaker. In addition, providing captions to hearing people also seems to enhance verbal comprehension. The increased comprehension for both hearing and deaf students will likely lead to a better learning environment and improved information transfer between the teacher and the students. Author Aaron Steinfeld is a researcher at the National Robotics Engineering Consortium at Carnegie Mellon University. The material from this article is drawn from his 1999 dissertation "The Benefit of Real-Time Captions in a Classroom Environment."

The Effects of Keyword Captions to Authentic French Video on Learner Comprehension

A study by Helen Gant Guillory in 1998. The three different amounts of text used were compared: full text, keywords, and no text. The results of the experiment showed that the keyword captions group outperformed the no-text group and that the full text captions group outperformed the keyword captions group. However, a post-hoc analysis revealed no significant difference between the means of the full text captions group and the keyword captions group. The positive effect of both keyword and full text captions on comprehension, the basic research hypothesis, was confirmed.

The Use of Television in the Development of Literacy

Considers the implications of the uses of film and television on the teaching of reading. The research, conducted by Bethan Marshall in 1997, looks at the practices of two primary schools in west London. Teachers used the television series "Rat a tat tat," designed to help children read, both by encouraging an enthusiasm for books and stories and by focusing on the mechanics of reading. Comments from teachers include: (1) "The use of television seemed to encourage children to use books. Children were interested in seeing books come to life, and this was motivating and confidence building," (2) ". . . I think that the television series has in some way made the books used even more attractive," and (3) "The series has made me change my expectations of some children because it allows you to watch them and see what they can do. They'll sometimes read things from the screen that you didn't know they could, or they'll come with a different attitude to the books they have seen on the screen."

Listening Skills Development Through Multimedia

As multimedia technology becomes more accessible to teachers and learners of other languages, its potential as a tool to enhance listening skills becomes a practical option. Multimedia allows integration of text, graphics, audio, and motion video in a range of combinations. This paper examines multimodal processing and its implications for listening skills development in a foreign or second language. When multiple forms of input may hypothetically cause interference or cognitive/perceptual overload, studies involving second- and foreign-language students and subtitled video provide strong counterevidence. These combined media, on the contrary, appear to enrich both processing and recall of the target language. Furthermore, including visuals for listening skills development finds support when rates of spoken language and the human ability to process incoming aural information are considered. Research by Carla Meskill, University of Albany, State University of New York in 1996.