Thesis (Ed.D.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 2007. / Thesis advisor: Nancy Hoffman. "... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-107). Also available via the World Wide Web.

"Increased numbers of children who bear the medical label 'deaf' or 'hard of hearing' are being integrated today into regular classes with their hearing peers in preschool, elementary and secondary schools of the United States" (Northcott, 1980, p. 1). Luckner (1992) related that approximately 79% of deaf and hard of hearing students have been served in mainstream settings. Regular education teachers were being asked to educate students who are deaf and hard of hearing with those who have no hearing difficulty. Deaf students who are mainstreamed may find difficulty fitting in if regular education teachers do not know how to help them. Finn (1989) studied drop-out rates and developed a "participation identification model" to explain the causes of dropping out. His study concluded that students need to feel a part of the school early in their education in order to actively participate in the schooling process. A participation-identification model "when applied to deaf students in local public school programs would suggest that early negative encounters with unrewarding communication situations would decrease a sense of identification with school already stressed by an inability to communicate with the environment" (Kluwin & Kelly, 1992, p. 295). Since identification is so important, regular education teachers need to receive specialized training in teaching children with hearing losses in order for the deaf student to have the opportunity to feel like he/she is a part of the school. Original text has pages 20 -22 out of order

A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Audiology in the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg March 2016. / Only a small number of Deaf school-leavers in South Africa enter higher education institutions (DeafSA, 2009). There does not seem to be an incentive to encourage Deaf school-leavers to enter higher education which contributes to the 90% unemployment rate of Deaf adults in South Africa (DeafSA, 2009). Deaf learners do not always seem to have opportunities for further study due to poor literacy skills. Deaf school leavers appear inadequately prepared for further education and employment when they leave high school and experience difficulty with communication and socio-emotional adjustment in the hearing world. This study explored the preparedness of young deaf adults for further education and employment within the Western Cape by describing the reflections of Deaf school-leavers regarding their transition from school to higher education and vocation. Focus group interviews and in-depth individual interviews were conducted with 19 Deaf participants between the ages of 21 and 25 who use SASL as their primary mode of communication and have attended a signing school for the Deaf in the Western Cape. The services of two SASL interpreters were used and the data collected were analysed using a thematic analysis. The findings of this study point to possible strategies that may facilitate the transition of the Deaf school leaver to higher education and vocation in the Western Cape. The data obtained in this study indicated a need for improved academic preparation of Deaf learners; an increase in educators of the Deaf that are fluent in SASL; an increase in SASL interpreters at higher education institutions and stronger transition programs at schools for the Deaf in the Western Cape. Moreover, participants in this study indicated a need for financial assistance for Deaf students to further their education and expressed the need for Deaf awareness and sensitization training of employers, employees, lecturers and fellow students of the Deaf in the Western Cape. Furthermore, the findings of this study suggested assistance from job placement officers with regard to integration and socialization of deaf employees in the workplace. / GR 2017

Thesis (Ph.D. (Education)) --University of Limpopo, 2010 / This research was initiated and undertaken in 2004 as an attempt to address one of the developments in education, namely the introduction of the policy of inclusive education and training system in South Africa in general and the Limpopo in particular. The major concern of this study is the implementation of the policy of inclusion to schools for learners with a hearing impairment (SLHI) in the Limpopo Province. This policy attempts to alleviate the system of discriminating learners with a disability (LWD) by including them into one single education system. However, the paradigm shift from specialized education system to inclusive education model has possible challenges to the management and governance of SLHI because managing schools for LHI requires specific skills, expertise knowledge and training of stakeholders. .Managers and governors of SLHI do not normally have these skills. In order to fully prepare managers and governors of SLHI within the context of inclusive education, they need to be trained in all spheres of management, and to do this, training programmes are needed. The specific research problem of this study is the lack of training of stakeholders, insufficient resources, and infrastructures which impact negatively on the management and governance of SLHI within the context of inclusive education model. Many buildings and schools are not accessible to wheelchair users. Classrooms are not equipped with group system hearing aids to facilitate teaching and learning of LHI. The fact that many inclusive education programmes for the first term steps are not yet in viii visible places or explicit, in the Limpopo Province contribute to the problem of implementation of inclusive education in the Limpopo Province. An in-depth study of literature dealing with research methodology was undertaken. This was meant to determine suitable research methods for this study. Both the quantitative and qualitative research methods were used. The findings from the empirical research (interviews, spontaneous sketches questionnaires and focus group interviews) were fully substantiated by the literature review. This complied with the rule of triangulation and also enhanced reliability of this research. In view of the findings of the research, it became evident that there are definite challenges of management and governance of SLHI by the implementation of inclusive education model in SLHI in the Limpopo Province. Models to train teachers were suggested. It is hoped that if these models can be implemented in SLHI, management problems could be minimized. Training programmes for parents were suggested. These programmes are crucial because parents play the major role in school management since they are the most in stake as is required by governance. Because education is not static, further research in this field is recommended in order for stakeholders to move along with current changes and developments in education. The present researcher hopes that this study will contribute greatly to the attempt to solve the problems of educators, learners and stakeholders.

No description available.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:46:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 3479.pdf: 820612 bytes, checksum: 96e4abf92b1cae29c991d39fa6e415e6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-02-16 / Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos / The inclusion provided access for people with special educational needs to regular education. Follow and analyze how it has been the inclusion of these children in regular schools is one way to contribute to the success of inclusion and education. This idea was developed in this research, focusing on deafness. This is a qualitative research, whose objective is to investigate and analyze how it is getting teaching and learning of deaf children included in regular schools from a midsize city in São Paulo. Participated in this research three deaf children and their teachers, resulting in three dyads. The instruments for information collection were questionnaires done with parents of participating children and their teachers, and classroom observation and recording of observations and information in a diary. The information analysis indicates that the main difficulties of teaching are in communication with the child with deafness and teaching without grounding on speech; The main difficulty in learning is to understand the speech in the classroom and in interpreting questions. The research results show lack of knowledge, training, information and support to work with these children, in other words, to the success of inclusion and quality education. / A inclusão propiciou o acesso de pessoas com necessidades educacionais especiais ao ensino regular. Acompanhar e analisar como tem sido a inclusão dessas crianças nas escolas regulares é uma forma de contribuir com o sucesso da inclusão e com a educação. A partir dessa idéia desenvolveu-se a presente pesquisa, focando a surdez. Trata-se de uma pesquisa de caráter qualitativo, cujo objetivo é investigar e analisar de que forma está ocorrendo o ensino e a aprendizagem de crianças com surdez, incluídas em escolas regulares de ensino de uma cidade de médio porte do interior paulista. Participaram da pesquisa três crianças com surdez e suas respectivas professoras, formando-se assim três díades. Os instrumentos para coleta de dados foram questionários realizados com os pais das crianças participantes e com suas respectivas professoras, além de observação em sala de aula e registro das observações e informações em diário de campo. A análise dos dados indica que as principais dificuldades de ensino estão na comunicação com a criança com surdez e em ensinar sem se basear na língua de sinais; a principal dificuldade de aprendizagem está em compreender as falas em sala de aula e em interpretar enunciados. Considera-se, conforme os resultados da pesquisa demonstram, que falta conhecimento, formação, informação e apoio para o trabalho com essas crianças, ou seja, para o sucesso da inclusão e de uma educação de qualidade.

The study aims to investigate how deaf learners with impoverished linguistic input in early life acquire Chinese passives and to what extent it impacts their ultimate attainment of the target structures defined in terms of knowledge representations and processing efficiency. While research on how deaf learners acquire syntactic movement remains scanty, available evidence with English, Hebrew, Arabic and Italian as target languages suggests difficulty in acquiring structures derived by A’-movement generally invoked in object relative clauses, object questions, and OVS topicalizations (Friedmann & Szterman,2006, 2011; Friedmann & Haddad,2008; Volpato & Adani, 2009; etc.). / In this study, we focused on Chinese passives because they involve non-canonical word order (i.e. O-BEI-(S)-V) as well as long distance dependencies. To account for the base-generated NP which is associated with the object of the embedded VP of Chinese bei-passives, Huang(1999) and Huang et al. (2009) argue for A-movement of PROin short bei-passives and A’-movement of a null operator in long bei-passives, assuming that the empty category merges with the embedded V in Chinese bei-passives and is subsequently coindexed with the grammatical subject through control or predication. Semantically, canonical Chinese passives are said to impose constraints on verb transitivity (Huang, 2013),and under some specific conditions, telicity of the embedded VP(Yang, 1995; Yang, 2012), the latter of which usually requires specific verb complement structures. / Three experiments were designed to investigate these issues.The picture selection task investigated how deaf learners developed knowledge of syntactic derivations involved in long bei-passives and short bei-passives; the grammaticality judgment task tested whether deaf learners acquired knowledge that intransitive verbs, like unaccusative and unergative verbs, are not allowed in canonical Chinese passives; and lastly,the elicited production task investigated deaf learners’ production of verb complements targeted in this study, namely activity-resultative complement [V+R], activity-completive complement [V+C], and activity-locative/directional complement [V+L], as it has been argued by Yang (1995) and Yang (2012) that these verb complements encode a telic event. In addition to examining their knowledge of Chinese passives, we also measured their response time in the first two tasks as a means to examine their efficiency in processing the structures in question. / Thirty five deaf learners aged between 14 and 24 took part in the current study. They were divided into three groups based on levels of Chinese proficiency. From the perspective of knowledge representations, their acquisition outcomes were highly variable, unlike the first language acquirers but similar to second language learners. In general, only those deaf learners at Level 3 completely acquired the syntactic derivations involved in passives while a great majority of the deaf learners at Levels 1 and 2 failed to demonstrate full mastery of the relevant linguistic structures. In addition, about half of the deaf learners at Levels 1 and 2 failed to recognize the verb transitivity constraint of the embedded VP in Chinese bei-passives, as they wrongly judged the passives with an intransitive verb to be grammatical. As for the knowledge of encoding telicity using verb complement structures, deaf learners at all levels experienced much difficulty and resorted to adopting the perfective aspect marker ‘le’ instead. Such difficulty persisted for a long time, as even deaf university students failed to acquire such knowledge ultimately, implying that verb complement structures for encoding a telic eventmight become a vulnerable residual domain to deaf learners in acquisition terms. / In terms of types of passives, the results showed that they developed Chinese passives in the order pseudo passives > short bei-passives > long bei-passives, similar to the Mandarin-speaking children, albeit at a slower rate (Xu & Yang, 2008).Also, deaf learners found it easy to acquire A-movement of an overt NP in pseudo passives. However, they experienced much difficulty with short passives and long passives. We argue that the cause of such difficulty is the syntactic movement which in this case involves an empty category (i.e. PRO and NOP) that needs to be coindexed with the grammatical subject in order to yield a correct interpretation regarding the thematic role of the subject NP.The extremely late acquisition of long bei-passives, as we argue, shares a similar acquisition process involved in first language acquisition of English tough constructions (Guasti, 2002; Anderson, 2005; Wexler, 2012; etc.). In their analysis, the late acquisition might be due to maturation of the null operator or Universal Phase Requirement that holds among children whose developing grammar takes the aP (i.e. the adjective Phrase as in ‘Everyone is tough for us to please.’) in the tough constructions to bea phase, preventing T from probing beyond the edge of aP leaving the phi-features of T remain unchecked. / Another aspect of ultimate attainment as measured in the current study is response time used by the deaf learners to process the relevant linguistic structures. Results showed that deaf learners’computational capacities are highly constrained. Even deaf university students who performed just as well as the native controls on the comprehension and judgement of linguistic knowledge of passives still demonstrated low processing efficiency. It is suggested that impoverished linguistic input in the early years, as well as continually inadequate input impedes language acquisition and language processing. / 本文旨在研究聋人在早期语言输入贫乏的环境下如何获得汉语被动式，以及它在何种程度上影响聋人目标语的最终获得状态，包括语言知识的呈现(knowledge representations) 和语言处理的效率(processing efficiency)。长期以来，关于聋人如何获得句法移位(syntactic movement)的研究极少，现有的研究主要来自英语，希伯来语，阿拉伯语和意大利语，并且发现聋人在获得通过非论元移位(A’-movement)派生而来的语法结构时存在许多困难，如宾语关系子句(object relative clause)，宾语疑问句(object questions)，以及宾语位于句首的话题句(OVS topicalizations) (Friedmann & Szterman, 2006, 2011; Friedmann et al., 2008; Volpato & Adani, 2009; etc.)。 / 研究聋人汉语被动式的获得，不仅因为被动式的非典型语序(i.e. O-BEI-(S)-V)，还因为汉语长短被动句句式中蕴含的长距离依赖关系。Huang (1999)和Huang et al. (2009)提出汉语短被动句的生成源自大代词(PRO)的论元移位(A-movement)，长被动句的生成源自空算子(null operator)的非论元移位(A’-movement)，通过移位，这两个空语类通过控制(control)或述谓(predication)与长短被动句中基础生成的(base-generated)主语同指。从语义的角度来看，典型的汉语被动式内嵌动词短语(embedded VP)具有及物性(transitivity)(Huang, 2013)；而且在某些特定语境下，还需具有终结性(telicity)，终结性的表达往往通过特定的动词补足语结构(verb complement structures)(Yang, 1995; Yang, 2012)。 / 为探讨以上问题，我们设计了三个实验：图片选择任务(picture selection task)旨在探讨聋人如何获得长被动句和短被动句中蕴含的不同句法移位；语法判断任务(grammaticality judgment task)用于测试聋人是否获得典型汉语被动式不允许不及物动词的知识；最后，诱导产出任务(elicited production task)用于研究聋人被动式中动词补足语的使用，以及他们是否能够掌握通过补足语来表达状态或位置的改变，从而满足被动式的终结性特征。该任务中涉及的动词与补足语的结合类型包括：“活动动词-结果类补足语(activity-resultative complement)” [V+R]，“活动动词-完成类补足语(activity-completive complement)” [V+C]，以及“活动动词-方位词/方向性短语(activity-locative/directional complement)”[V+L]。除此以外，我们还测量聋人在图片选择和语法判断这两个任务中的反应时长，以考察聋人加工处理汉语被动式的效率。 / 35位14岁到24岁的聋人参与了该研究，并且通过汉语水平测试分数将他们分到三个不同的组别。从掌握语言知识的角度来看，聋人汉语被动式的获得表现出高度的多样性，虽然不同于一语学习者，但与二语学习者相似。简言之，只有高级组(Level 3)的聋人才完全掌握汉语被动式的句法生成，大部分初级组(Level 1)和中级组(Level 2)的聋人都未能完全掌握相关的语言知识。另外，将近一半的初级组和中级组的聋人尚未获得汉语被动式中内嵌动词及物性的要求，他们错误地认为汉语被动句中使用不及物动词是合语法的。最后，关于被动句内嵌动词短语使用各类动词补足语来表达终结性，所有组别的聋人普遍遇到困难，并且用完成体标记‘了’来替代。这种困难一直持续很长时间，即使是聋人大学生都未能系统完整地获得，意味着使用各类动词补足语来表达终结性可能是缺乏早期语言输入的聋人学习汉语被动式最终难以完全获得的。 / 关于不同类型汉语被动句的获得，结果显示聋人获得的先后顺序与健听儿童一致(Xu & Yang, 2008)，即：假被动句(pseudo passives) > 短被动句> 长被动句。整体而言，假被动句中显现成分(overt element)的论元移位对聋人来说比较容易获得；但是，他们在获得长被动句和短被动句的句法移位，以及正确解读空算子或大代词与句子主语的共指方面存在许多困难。对于长被动句的最迟获得，我们认为这与以英语为母语的儿童延迟获得‘tough-句式’类似(Guasti, 2002; Anderson, 2005; Wexler, 2012; etc.)，有可能因为空算子的成熟(the maturation of null operator)要到6至7岁，或者是未成熟儿童坚持普遍阶段要求(Universal Phase Requirement)，而导致句法生成受阻。 / 本研究所定义的最终获得的另一方面即加工处理相关语言结构所用反应时长。结果显示聋人的加工处理能力高度受限，即使是较好地获得了汉语被动句相关知识的聋人大学生依然表现出较低效率的加工处理能力。这些研究结果表明早期贫乏的语言输入以及随之的不充足语言输入都会阻碍语言的最终获得及加工处理的效率。 / Li, Qun. / Thesis M.Phil. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2015. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 245-253). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on 09, September, 2016). / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-23T14:01:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Aline de Menezes Bregonci.pdf: 1291231 bytes, checksum: 6987471863cd094c8048cc5381546c76 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-10-04 / A presente dissertação: Estudantes Surdos no Proeja: o que nos contam as narrativas sobre os seus percursos? , problematiza os caminhos trilhados pelos estudantes surdos jovens e adultos no Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Espírito Santo Ifes, dentro do Programa Nacional de Integração da Educação Profissional com a Educação Básica na Modalidade de Educação Jovens e Adultos- Proeja, procurando através das narrativas, remontar esses percursos e a partir deles, procurar responder algumas questões. O interesse por este tema surgiu devido aos últimos movimentos nos quais a comunidade surda se engajou, a fim de tentar estabelecer uma política em nível nacional que garanta o acesso e a permanência dos surdos na escola. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo geral evidenciar os espaços de formação que os surdos tem ocupado e como tem sido esse processo de formação para o mundo do trabalho. Como objetivos específicos, destacamos: a) a realização de um resgate histórico da Educação de Surdos; b) a discussão de questões legais, relacionadas ao direito educacional do surdos; c) a identificação de espaços nos quais ocorrem o diálogo entre a Educação de Jovens e Adultos, a Educação de Surdos e a Educação Profissional e Tecnológica; d) apontar algumas possibilidades de alternativas para o desenvolvimento dos surdos e a sua inserção no mundo do trabalho. Como inspirações teóricas utilizamos Bakhtin, Benjamin, Ricouer, Freire e Marx, estes são nossas referências principais. Na metodologia de trabalho, lançamos mão da Narrativa, como forma de alcançar os participantes do processo de inclusão dos surdos no Ifes. Primeiramente, remontamos o passado da Educação de Surdos, como forma de levantar dados sobre o que nos dizem as fontes bibliográficas, sobre esse processo. Em seguida, damos ênfase a uma discussão legal, que procura, dentro da legislação, subsídios que garantam aos surdos uma formação para o mundo do trabalho. Por último, construímos os percursos dos estudantes surdos dentro do Ifes, destacando o movimento que surgiu dentro do instituto por conta da inclusão desses alunos, problematizando as práticas e refletindo sobre os fatos que se deram ao longo desta caminhada. Foram muitos os acontecimentos, verdadeiras movimentações, que merecem nossa reflexão, pois a experiência ali vivenciada, tem muito a contribuir para pensarmos sobre como, no futuro, garantir a outros estudantes surdos, condições de acesso e permanência, não só no Ifes, mas nas escolas como um todo. E também, destacamos uma outra alternativa de trabalho com surdos, no que tange a EJA e a formação para o mundo trabalho que é a EJA da Garoto, um espaço onde foi possível dialogar com outros surdos que almejam a formação profissional, conhecer quais são seus projetos de vida e perspectivas profissionais / The present study, Deaf Students in Proeja: what do the narratives tell us about their journeys? , discusses the paths taken by young or adult deaf students at IFES, the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of the State of Espírito Santo, which occurred within the Proeja, the National Program for the Integration of Vocational with Basic Education in the Modality of Youth and Adult Education. This paper aimed to trace these journeys through the narratives and from them look for answering some questions. The interest in this subject came up due to recent movements in which the deaf community has been engaged in order to establish a national policy that ensures access and permanence of the deaf students in the school. This study also aims to highlight the educational places where the deaf have been occupying and how this training process has been for the labor market. As the specific aims of this paper we highlighted the following topic: a) the realization of a historical review of the Deaf Education; b) the discussion of legal issues related to the right of deaf education; c) the identification of the places in which occurred the dialogue among the Youth and Adult Education, the Education of the Deaf and the Technological and Professional Education; d) to point out some possible alternatives for the development of the deaf and their integration into the labor market. We used the narratives as the methodology of this study in order to involve the participants in the process of including the deaf people at IFES. First, we traced the history of the Deaf Education as a way to collect data concerning what the bibliographic sources tell us about this process. Then, we present a legal discussion that intends to find, within the law, subsidies to ensure that deaf have access to an education that considers the labor market. Finally, we traced the paths of deaf students in the Federal Institute of Espírito Santo, highlighting the movements that emerged within the institute due to the inclusion of these students. We also questioned the practices in this process and we reflected over the events that occurred along this walk.There were many events, happenings, real movements that deserve our reflection because the experience lived there has a lot to contribute, mainly on ways to ensure that other deaf students have access not only at IFES but in every school. And also, we point another working alternative with deaf people, concerning to the EJA and the training to the world that is the work of EJA Garoto, a space where we can talk with other deaf people who want professional training, to know what are their life projects and career prospects

Desde a promulgaÃÃo das leis que asseguram o processo de inclusÃo, a escolarizaÃÃo do aluno surdo, em especial nas turmas de ensino regular, vem ganhando espaÃo nas pesquisas acadÃmicas. Para garantir a educaÃÃo do aluno surdo, à necessÃria uma rede de apoio, na qual se destaca a figura do intÃrprete, responsÃvel na traduÃÃo e interpretaÃÃo dos conteÃdos curriculares, uma vez que maioria dos professores do ensino mÃdio nÃo sÃo fluentes na LÃngua Brasileira de Sinais â LIBRAS. Diante dessa realidade, a presente pesquisa buscou investigar a atuaÃÃo dos Professores de QuÃmica e IntÃrpretes no processo de ensino-aprendizagem dos alunos surdos que cursam o Ensino MÃdio, destacando as dificuldades encontradas para docÃncia de QuÃmica e as metodologias que vem sendo utilizadas para facilitar a compreensÃo dos conceitos e termos cientÃficos que nÃo se encontram nos dicionÃrios de Libras. O tipo de pesquisa caracteriza-se como um estudo de caso, este foi realizado em duas escolas pÃblicas do Estado do CearÃ, sendo uma das escolas bilÃngue. A tÃcnica utilizada para obtenÃÃo de dados foi aplicaÃÃo de questionÃrios com questÃes semiestruturadas. Os resultados da pesquisa foram organizados por categorias a partir da anÃlise de dados, sendo que os relatos dos entrevistados foram analisados a partir de referencial teÃrico que embasou a discussÃo acerca do tema pesquisado. O resultado da pesquisa demonstrou que o principal entrave para inclusÃo do aluno surdo no ensino regular se dà por conta da comunicaÃÃo, prejudicada pela carÃncia de sinais em Libras para conceitos cientÃficos de quÃmica. Tal situaÃÃo motiva intÃrpretes e professores a procurarem meios de minimizar essa carÃncia de sinais, fazendo com que estes criem seus prÃprios sinais em Libras para conceitos quÃmicos. No que se refere aos recursos didÃticos que favorecem a aprendizagem de quÃmica, verificou-se que a utilizaÃÃo dos recursos midiÃticos, em especial aqueles que estimulam a visÃo, sÃo essenciais e aumentam consideravelmente as chances do aluno aprender o que lhe à ensinado. Ao final da pesquisa, concluiu-se que a falta de metodologias que atendam a especificidade linguÃsticas dos surdos e a falta de planejamento conjunto entre professor e intÃrprete, pode acarretar prejuÃzos na escolarizaÃÃo dos alunos com surdez. Hà uma necessidade de iniciativas que visem a melhoria no ensino de QuÃmica para alunos com surdez, uma delas à a elaboraÃÃo e a divulgaÃÃo de terminologias quÃmicas na lÃngua brasileira de sinais. / Since the enactment of the laws that ensure the processes of inclusion, the education of deaf students, especially in regular classes, has been gaining ground in academic research. To ensure the education of deaf students, a support network is needed, in which the figure of the interpreter is highlighted due to the activeness in translation and interpretation of curriculum content, as most high school teachers are not fluent in Brazilian Sign Language â LIBRAS. Given this reality, the present study sought to investigate the actions of the Chemistry teachers and interpreters in the teaching-learning process of deaf students who attend high school, highlighting the difficulties in teaching Chemistry and the methodologies that have been used to ease the understanding of scientific concepts and terms that are not in Libras dictionaries. The type of research is characterized as a case study, which was carried out in two public schools in the state of Cearà (one of them is a bilingual school). The technique used to obtain data was based on questionnaires with semi-structured questions. The survey results were organized by categories, considering the data analysis; the reports of the interviewees were then analyzed based on the theoretical framework that conducted the discussion on the researched subject. The result of the research showed that the main obstacle to inclusion of deaf students in regular education occurs due to the communication, hampered by the lack of signs in Libras for scientific concepts in Chemistry. This situation motivates interpreters and teachers to seek ways to minimize this gap, leading them to create their own signs in Libras to represent chemical concepts. With regard to the educational resources that favor Chemistry learning, it was found that the use of media resources, particularly those that stimulate vision, are essential and greatly increase the chances of the students to learn what is taught. At the end of the survey, it was concluded that for there to be improvements in chemistry teaching for deaf students are required the preparation and disclosure of chemical terminology in Brazilian sign language, since the absence of appropriate signals can interfere with the learning of concepts that discipline.

This study will take the form of a case study of a group of Deaf Information Technology (IT) students and their Sign Language interpreters at Durban University of Technology (DUT). These students are enrolled under a Programme for the Deaf run by the Information Technology Department. The department provides additional assistance in the form of Sign Language interpreters who attend all their lectures and also provide extra tutorials for them. The aim of the research is to identify the main challenges encountered by this group of students at DUT. I first became aware of the existence of these students while engaged in an action research project at the beginning of 2005 and realised that this was an area that needed further study. There is a lack of research on Deaf students in tertiary institutions in South Africa and there are not many tertiary institutions which enrol Deaf students and provide them with a Sign Language interpreter. I realised that this was an area which needed to be researched and that the resulting findings could make a difference to the lives of Deaf students at DUT by identifying the main problems and perhaps suggesting ways in which these could be addressed. Group interviews with the Deaf participants were conducted with the assistance of a Sign Language interpreter in order to explore their challenges. Further interviews were conducted with the interpreters who were interviewed individually. The study was limited to Deaf students enrolled under the undergraduate Programme for the Deaf at DUT and, as a result, might not reflect challenges faced by any other deaf students at DUT or other tertiary institutions. The findings identified, amongst others, problems such as poor literacy levels of the Deaf students and lack of communication between the Deaf students and hearing staff and students on campus among other problems. The Deaf students felt marginalised and largely ignored on campus. There was very little awareness of Deafness among hearing students and staff at DUT. Some possible solutions to these problems were suggested such as including deaf awareness in the orientation of hearing staff and students. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.