See below a request from colleagues in UCL
“Help Us Understand Deaf Kids’ Language Skills – Exciting Project Update!
Hello there! We’re Dr. Kate Rowley and Dr. Patrick Rosenburg, two deaf researchers from the Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL) at University College London (UCL). We’re delighted to share what we’ve been up to in our project.
Our project is all about language comprehension in deaf children who use sign language. We’re on a mission with two significant objectives:
- We want to unravel how knowledge of BSL vocabulary and BSL grammar correlate with how well deaf children comprehend sign language as a whole.
- We’re curious about how BSL comprehension links with how well deaf children read and understand English.
So far, we’ve made fantastic progress. We’ve even created a brand-new BSL comprehension test. This test will be immensely valuable for professionals such as teachers, speech therapists, and clinicians. Plus, we’ve already enlisted over 120 deaf children – quite impressive, isn’t it? However, we’re not stopping there. We aim to involve 300 deaf children aged 4 to 18 in our project.
You might be wondering why we need so many children. Well, when we develop a new test for language skills, we require a large number of children to ensure it’s a high-quality test. It will help us comprehend how various sign language skills come together and how sign language comprehension relates to reading in English. That’s why we’re reaching out to include more deaf children, including those with additional needs.
A massive shoutout to the schools and parents who have already joined us – you’re wonderful! If you’re a parent or work at a school that hasn’t yet joined us, we’d be delighted if you could get involved. Please contact us if you’re interested. We’re eager to include more children from England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Our project concludes in January 2024, so don’t delay too long!
Huge thanks!
Kate and Patrick
Email us at: [email protected]”
