<p>In South Africa, Deaf people communicate with one another and the broader community by means of South African Sign Language. The majority of Deaf people who have access to a mobile&nbsp / phone (cell phone) use Short Message Service (SMS) to communicate and share information with hearing people, but seldom use it among themselves. It is assumed that video messaging&nbsp / will be more accessible to Deaf people, since their&nbsp / level of literacy may prevent them from making effective use of information that is disseminated via texting/SMS. The principal objective of the&nbsp / esearch was to explore a cost-effective and efficient mass multimedia messaging system. The intention was to adapt a successful text-based mass notification system, developed by a&nbsp / local nongovernmental organization (NGO), to accommodate efficient and affordable video mass messaging for Deaf people. The questions that underpin this research are: How should video- streaming mass-messaging methods be compared and evaluated to find the most suitable method to deliver an affordable and acceptable service to Deaf people? What transport vehicles&nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / should be considered: Multimedia Message Service (MMS), the web, electronic mail, or a cell phone resident push/pullapplication? Which is the most cost effective? And, finally: How does the video quality of the various transport vehicles differ in terms of the clarity of the sign language as perceived by the Deaf? The soft-systems methodology and a mixed-methods methodology&nbsp / were used to address the research questions. The soft-systems methodology was followed to manage the research process and the mixed-methods research methodology was followed to&nbsp / collect data. Data was collected by means of experiments and semi-structured interviews. A prototype for mobile phone usage was developed and evaluated with Deaf members the NGO Deaf&nbsp / Community of Cape Town. The technology and internet&nbsp / usage of the Deaf participants provided background information. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to analyse&nbsp / the quantitative data, and content analysis was used to analyse the documents and interviews. All of the Deaf participants used their mobile phones for SMS and the majority (81.25%) used&nbsp / English to type messages / however, all indicated that they would have preferred to use South Africa sign language on their mobile phones if it were available. And they were quite willing to pay between 75c and 80c per message for using such a video-messaging&nbsp / service.Of the transport vehicles demonstrated, most Deaf people indic indicated that they preferred to use the SMS&nbsp / prototype (with a web link to the video) rather than the MMS prototype with the video attached. They were, however, very concerned about the cost of using the system, as well as the quality of the sign language videos.</p>

<p>In South Africa, Deaf people communicate with one another and the broader community by means of South African Sign Language. The majority of Deaf people who have access to a mobile&nbsp / phone (cell phone) use Short Message Service (SMS) to communicate and share information with hearing people, but seldom use it among themselves. It is assumed that video messaging&nbsp / will be more accessible to Deaf people, since their&nbsp / level of literacy may prevent them from making effective use of information that is disseminated via texting/SMS. The principal objective of the&nbsp / esearch was to explore a cost-effective and efficient mass multimedia messaging system. The intention was to adapt a successful text-based mass notification system, developed by a&nbsp / local nongovernmental organization (NGO), to accommodate efficient and affordable video mass messaging for Deaf people. The questions that underpin this research are: How should video- streaming mass-messaging methods be compared and evaluated to find the most suitable method to deliver an affordable and acceptable service to Deaf people? What transport vehicles&nbsp / &nbsp / &nbsp / should be considered: Multimedia Message Service (MMS), the web, electronic mail, or a cell phone resident push/pullapplication? Which is the most cost effective? And, finally: How does the video quality of the various transport vehicles differ in terms of the clarity of the sign language as perceived by the Deaf? The soft-systems methodology and a mixed-methods methodology&nbsp / were used to address the research questions. The soft-systems methodology was followed to manage the research process and the mixed-methods research methodology was followed to&nbsp / collect data. Data was collected by means of experiments and semi-structured interviews. A prototype for mobile phone usage was developed and evaluated with Deaf members the NGO Deaf&nbsp / Community of Cape Town. The technology and internet&nbsp / usage of the Deaf participants provided background information. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to analyse&nbsp / the quantitative data, and content analysis was used to analyse the documents and interviews. All of the Deaf participants used their mobile phones for SMS and the majority (81.25%) used&nbsp / English to type messages / however, all indicated that they would have preferred to use South Africa sign language on their mobile phones if it were available. And they were quite willing to pay between 75c and 80c per message for using such a video-messaging&nbsp / service.Of the transport vehicles demonstrated, most Deaf people indic indicated that they preferred to use the SMS&nbsp / prototype (with a web link to the video) rather than the MMS prototype with the video attached. They were, however, very concerned about the cost of using the system, as well as the quality of the sign language videos.</p>

Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2009. / Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 107 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis of (M.A.)--University of Alberta, 2009. / Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on October 2, 2009). "Fall, 2009." At head of title: University of Alberta. A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduates Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Speical Education, Educational Psychology, University of Alberta. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 309-315). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.S.)--Wisconsin. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-153).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 309-315).

Thesis (M. Log.)--Universiteit van Pretoria, 2000.

Deaf children lag behind their hearing peers in mathematical attainment. The reasons for this delay remain unclear. Two methods were used to identify the causes for this underachievement: a longitudinal investigation of predictors of mathematical attainment, and comparison with hearing children. In order for a cause of delay to be identified, both investigative strategies must produce positive results. The deaf children must lag behind the hearing children on the measures and the same measures must predict deaf children's mathematics attainment. The comparative study: The participants were: a) 42 hearing impaired (HI) children age range from 7;2 years to 9;1 years attending units and special schools located on eight different sites around London; b) 73 hearing children aged from 7;2 years to 8;11 years, classmates of some HI children attending a unit based in a mainstream school. A standardised maths test, a measure of their understanding of additive composition (the Shop Task), a memory scan task and tasks assessing understanding of time concepts were administered to all the children. The last two assessments were developed for the study. The performance by the HI children on standardised assessments was also compared to norms standardised on hearing populations. The deaf obtained significantly lower scores on nearly all of the tasks. In the maths test the mean standardised score for the hearing children was 92.68 and for the deaf children was 78.31. There were also significant differences on the memory scan task — the accuracy rates were lower, memory capacity sizes were smaller and the number processing speed was slower for the deaf children. On the time concept tasks the hearing children obtained significantly more correct responses on the tasks assessing change, ability to infer and order events. When the HI children's performance was compared to the norms of standardised assessments, a similar picture emerged. The mean Number Age was 1;1 year behind the hearing norms. The mean WISC score obtained was one standard deviation below the published mean. Raw scores obtained on the reading comprehension task were too low to be standardised. In assessments of receptive language, the HI children obtained standardised scores that were 1 standard deviation below the mean. It was concluded that all of these variables could be examined as predictor variables in the longitudinal study. The longitudinal study: The HI children participating in the comparison study were assessed twice again over the academic year. The outcome measures were scores on standardised mathematics assessments. The predictors were demographic and medical background; intelligence, language; understanding of time; memory capacity and number processing speed; numerical skills such as counting and additive composition. The only demographic variable consistently associated with mathematics scores was age. Analyses using fixed order multiple regression explored the relationships between the various cognitive, numerical and linguistic predictors and mathematics attainment. After controlling for age and non-verbal IQ, only three predictors remained significant: the language assessments, Shop Task, the Change and Inference Required time concepts tasks. When controlling for age, non-verbal IQ and language ability, only the Shop Task added a significant amount of variance in the equation. This equation explained 44% of the variance in a concurrent analysis and 66% and 64% of the variance in longitudinal predictions 4 and 7 months later, respectively. Conclusions: The present study confirms that HI children are behind their peers in mathematics achievement. Explanations for this delay were sought by identifying areas where their performance is poorer than that of hearing children and predictive of their own progress in mathematics. Although the HI children achieved lower scores in the majority of the assessments in the comparative study only the language measures and the Shop Task satisfied both criteria and added a significant amount of variance in the regression equations in the predictive study. It is concluded that these may be causally related to HI children's delay in mathematics.

The field of education of the deaf is a relatively new one, particularly in Canada. Little information on the Canadian schools for the deaf has been compiled or published. This paper was written, therefore, to survey the facilities that are being provided by the provinces of Canada for the education of deaf children. It covers all the schools for the deaf, residential and day, and deals briefly with several day classes that some of the public school boards in the larger Canadian cities have started. A brief survey of the historical background of early deaf education in Europe and the United States and of the meaning of the various methods of instruction and communication has been included to show their influence on the Canadian schools and to help explain why certain methods are used in these schools. This is followed by an historical account of the various Schools for the Deaf in Canada. A section on "Instruction" sets forth the principles and practices in respect to academic, vocational, social, and religious instruction at present given in each school. Problems, regarding teacher training facilities, pre-school and clinics, parent education programs, and some common misconceptions about the deaf and their education, are dealt with in separate chapters. The final section summarizes present trends and looks forward to possible future development. Initial work involved consideration of British and American relevant literature. Information relating directly to the schools themselves was obtained chiefly by questionaires sent to the school superintendents and to the superintendents of the public school boards involved. This information was supplemented by data from the Provincial Education Reports and the American Annals of the Deaf. Interviews and correspondence with a large number of people who had worked or were still working in the field were invaluable in filling out the picture. It is hoped that the data accumulated will be of benefit: first, to the staffs and schools for the deaf in Canada; secondly, to educational institutions and related fields; thirdly, to parents of deaf children and all others concerned. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate