This issue of Deafness & Education International contains five research articles covering a broad range of topics in deaf education. The first article by Tiffany Hutchins, Lyndsey Allen and Maggie Schefer presents the results of a preliminary study exploring Theory of Mind of oral and late signing children with hearing loss. Using the Theory of Mind Inventory-2, the authors also gathered criterion-related validity data of the instrument for its use with this population. Not surprisingly, there was broad variation within the group which was correlated with vocabulary, pragmatic language development and age of receiving a cochlear implant, suggesting that it may be a useful tool to detect ToM in children with hearing loss.
Rachel Rees, Claire Fitzpatrick, Jessica Foulkes, Hilary Peterson and Caroline Newton, conducted a study of the use of Cued Speech training with older children with hearing loss to help in the identification of phonemes that are similar in terms of lip-reading patterns. Using a computer-based training programme, the results showed promising improvements in the participants’ ability to read phonemes in non-words that were generalized to non-training items.
Andrea Simpson and Elizabeth Baldwin evaluated the accessibility, availability and quality of online information regarding the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and hearing loss in Australia. They identified the most common search engine keyword terms used by caregivers to conduct a web search. They then identified the top websites linked with each keyword. While the majority of websites scored in the fair range for overall quality only a small percentage referred users to the NDIS. The hierarchy of website presentation was not associated with quality suggesting that caregivers may not be accessing the highest quality of information using a computer-based search approach.
Two articles follow that investigate the experiences of teaching and support personnel working with students with hearing loss in mainstream education. Ingela Holmström and Krister Schönström investigated the resources provided to students with hearing loss in mainstream schools in Sweden and the views of teachers of children with hearing loss on the functioning and learning of their pupils. They used quantitative and qualitative questionnaires and interviews. The results revealed a high degree of variability in resource provision across the sector which has implications for student outcomes.
The final article by Jackie Salter, Ruth Swanwick and Susan Pearson also looked at the learning experiences of students with hearing loss in mainstream secondary classrooms, but primarily from teaching assistants’ (TA) perspectives. Using focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews the TAs discussed their experiences which were cross validated by the other teacher of the deaf and classroom teacher participants. The TAs explicitly stated that mainstream teachers were often unaware of the challenges many deaf students faced. The analysis revealed the degree of collaboration between these support personnel and the limited extent to which specialist knowledge informed pedagogical and support practices.