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Abstract
In the last 15 to 20 years, there has been recognition of deaf people as bilinguals with American Sign Language (ASL) and Deaf culture to be the language and culture of the US Deaf community. Television is one medium that can influence the way viewers perceive minority groups. Programs such as Sesame Street have incorporated positive cultural role models for hearing minority children. Minimal research has been conducted of the portrayal of deaf people in educational television. The purpose of this study is to analyze the portrayal of deaf characters in several children's educational television programs: Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow, and Blue's Clues. I conducted a content analysis of one episode of each of these programs. After viewing each episode, transcriptions were coded into either pathological or cultural categories and results were analyzed. Results indicate that these episodes do not portray deaf characters from a cultural perspective.