Deaf Children's Engagement in an Educational Video in

American Sign Language

Debbie B. Golos

American Annals of the Deaf, Volume 155, Number 3, Summer 2010, pp.
360-368 (Article)

Published by Gallaudet University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/aad.2010.0014

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/399697

Access provided at 3 Apr 2020 16:09 GMT from UFRJ-Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
17907-AAD155.3 10/7/10 10:42 AM Page 360
DEAF CHILDREN’S ENGAGEMENT IN AN
EDUCATIONAL VIDEO IN AMERICAN
SIGN LANGUAGE
O
DEBBIE B. GOLOS
GOLOS IS AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF DEAF
EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATIVE
DISORDERS AND DEAF EDUCATION,
UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY, LOGAN.
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VOLUME 155, NO. 3, 2010
VER TIME, children’s educational television has successfully modified
programming to incorporate research-based strategies to facilitate
learning and engagement during viewing. However, research has been
limited on whether these same strategies would work with preschool
deaf children viewing videos in American Sign Language. In a descrip-
tive study, engagement behaviors of 25 preschool deaf children during
multiple viewings of an educational video in ASL were examined. The
video incorporated research-based interactive strategies to facilitate en-
gagement while targeting vocabulary through ASL, fingerspelling, and
English print. Each of 3 viewing sessions was recorded; videos were
transcribed and coded for frequency of children’s movements, point-
ing, fingerspelling, and signing. Behaviors were analyzed for frequency
within and across multiple viewings and by level of signing skills. It was
found that each of these engagement behaviors occurred frequently
throughout viewings and increased across multiple viewings regardless
of a child’s age or signing skills.
Over the past 40 years, educational tel- ing children, and that the more pre-
evision has been used successfully as a schoolers engage in these programs,
medium for teaching hearing children. the more they learn.
Programming has been continually The video medium is also a benefi-
adapted to incorporate research-based cial tool for deaf children. In recent
strategies to facilitate children’s learn- years, educational videos such as Sign-
ing and engagement during viewing. ing Time! (Brown, 2007) and the Read
Research on children’s educational With Me series (e.g., Schick & Moeller,
television programs such as Sesame 1996) have been targeted toward the
Street (Rice, Huston, Truglio, & Wright, deaf population. However, minimal
1990), Between the Lions (Rath, 2002), research has been conducted on the
and Blue’s Clues (Crawley, Anderson, effectiveness of these programs, espe-
Wilder, Williams, & Santomero, 1999) cially those targeted toward preschool
has demonstrated that watching these deaf children. The purpose of the
programs improves language, literacy, present study was to examine the en-
and cognitive skills of preschool hear- gagement behaviors of preschool deaf
AMERICAN ANNALS OF THE DEAF
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children while they were viewing an
educational video in American Sign
Language (ASL).
Theoretical Framework
The present study is grounded in the
theory of active viewing (Anderson &
Lorch, 1983), which suggests that chil-
dren are not passive viewers of televi-
sion. Active viewing is defined as the
extent to which children attend to and
engage in television programming.
Theorists who uphold the concept of a
model of active viewing consider that
the extent to which children pay at-
tention to television is affected by the
effort they expend to comprehend a
particular program. As applied to the
present study, this theory would pre-
dict that increased engagement behav-
iors would reflect an increase in video
comprehension.
Review of the Literature
Because there has been only limited
research related to deaf children’s
engagement behaviors while viewing
educational television, I examined
research related to engagement
strategies used in the development
of children’s television programming
and how children engage while view-
ing such programs. I also examined
strategies Deaf adults use to facilitate
engagement during language and lit-
eracy activities.
Children’s Educational
Television
Strategies Used in Media
Children’s educational programs have
incorporated many strategies that facil-
itate engagement. For example, in the
program Blue’s Clues, the main charac-
ter, Steve, asks the viewing audience a
question, then pauses, giving the view-
ers the opportunity to answer before
the characters do (Crawley, et al., 2002;
Fisch & Truglio, 2001). Sesame Street
researchers have found additional
VOLUME 155, NO. 3, 2010
techniques to be successful, such as
repeating and reinforcing targeted
skills either within or across different
episodes and presenting the same
content in different contexts (Fisch &
Truglio, 2001). Research has shown
that children respond positively to
these strategies by counting along, an-
swering questions, imitating actions,
copying dialogue, questioning the con-
tent of the video, nodding, and point-
ing (Crawley et al., 1999; Fisch, 2004).
Support for Educational
Children’s Programming in ASL
While there are many instructional
ASL videos and children’s stories that
have been translated into ASL on
video, limited research has been con-
ducted on the effectiveness of these
programs in engaging deaf children in
language and literacy activities. Se-
lected materials and video clips from
the television program Between the
Lions have been adapted into ASL
(among other modalities) for teachers
to use. These adaptations have been
found to be effective tools for increas-
ing the literacy skills of 6-to-10-year-
old deaf children (Loederman, Paul, &
Donahue, 2002).
One study of hearing children pro-
vides some insight for creating educa-
tional videos in ASL for children with
minimal signing skills. Fisch, Brown-
McCann, and Cohen (2001) conducted
a study related to the comprehension
of television programs through non-
verbal communication. Fisch and col-
leagues found that children were able
to comprehend the educational mes-
sage of a story and that comprehen-
sion increased when the messages
were visually concrete. This study sug-
gests that it might be possible for chil-
dren who do not know sign language
to comprehend a story in sign lan-
guage if concrete visual images accom-
pany the signs. Thus, even children
who have not been exposed to ASL
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might comprehend and learn from a
video in ASL, even without voice-over.
For deaf children, learning ASL at a
young age is essential to developing
language and literacy skills. Current
research indicates the presence of a
significant correlation between ASL
skills and reading skills (Mayberry,
1993; Padden, 1996; Padden & Ram-
sey, 1998; Prinz & Strong, 1998; Sin-
gleton, Supalla, Litchfield, & Schley,
1998). Deaf children of Deaf parents,
who have been exposed to ASL from
birth, develop literacy skills that allow
them to continue to outperform deaf
children with hearing parents on vo-
cabulary tasks and language skills
(Mayberry, 1993; Mayberry & Eichen,
1991). Videos in ASL could help facili-
tate the development of these skills in
deaf children with hearing parents.
Strategies Deaf Adults
Use to Engage Deaf
Children in Language
and Literacy Activities
Deaf adults use a variety of strategies to
engage deaf children during literacy-re-
lated activities. For example, several re-
searchers have discovered that during
book sharing, Deaf adults will sign on
the book or on the child’s body (or
both), lean toward the child, or use
surprised facial expressions to main-
tain the child’s attention to the story
(Mather, 1989; Maxwell, 1984; L. Erting,
2001).
Deaf adults also use strategies to
help build vocabulary, “oral language,”
and comprehension skills. For exam-
ple, Deaf adults might ask children
questions, expand on the text, and
help children make connections be-
tween the text and their own lives (An-
drews & Taylor, 1987; L. Erting, 2001;
Mather, 1989).
These strategies have proven ef-
fective. For instance, Williams and Mc-
Clean (1997) examined five preschool
deaf children’s responses to picture-
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ENGAGEMENT BEHAVIORS OF DEAF PRESCHOOLERS
book reading, and documented at-
tending behaviors such as rocking,
laughing, applause, repetition, and im-
itation of the teacher. Transcriptions
also revealed children’s engagement
behaviors during the storytelling such
as miming the characters’ actions and
mimicking characters’ facial expres-
sions. Williams and McClean’s findings
demonstrate that deaf children’s re-
sponses to picture-book reading paral-
lel hearing children’s responses. These
results also suggest that children could
respond to videos in sign language in a
similar manner.
Several researchers advocate the
use of fingerspelling as a bridge to
connect children’s knowledge of ASL
to their knowledge of English print
(e.g., Padden & Ramsey, 1998). Be-
cause children do not necessarily have
to know how to read the printed al-
phabet in order to understand or sign
a fingerspelled word (Padden & Ram-
sey, 1998), Deaf parents facilitate this
connection from birth (Blumenthal-
Kelly, 1995). This strategy then carries
over when parents include the use of
English print in their interactions with
their deaf children. Deaf parents use
“chaining” to combine fingerspelling,
pointing to print, and signing in a vari-
ety of ways (Akamatsu & Andrews,
1993; Andrews & Taylor, 1987; C. Ert-
ing, Thumann-Prezioso, & Benedict,
2000; Maxwell, 1984; Padden & Ram-
sey, 1998). This also occurs when Deaf
adults are working with deaf children
who have had minimal sign language
exposure (Mather, 1989).
Each of these strategies, used by
Deaf adults as well as in children’s ed-
ucational television programming, not
only helps sustain engagement, but
also facilitates language and literacy
development. There have been few
educational videos targeted toward
preschool deaf children that incorpo-
rate these strategies while featuring
Deaf characters who use ASL as their
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VOLUME 155, NO. 3, 2010
primary mode of interaction. In regard
to those that have been made, there is
minimal research on whether children
will engage in such videos.
In the present study, I aimed to de-
termine the extent to which deaf pre-
school children would engage in an
educational video in ASL, and how
their engagement behaviors would
change across multiple viewings and
vary by level of signing skills. Three re-
search questions were addressed: To
what extent do deaf preschool chil-
dren engage in an educational video
in ASL? How do these engagement be-
haviors change across multiple video
viewings? How do engagement behav-
iors vary according to signing skills?
Methods
Materials
Based on the reviewed research, a 43-
minute educational video in ASL (with
no sound) was developed to incorpo-
rate strategies to facilitate engagement
behaviors. The video was structured
so that targeted language and literacy
skills were spiraled throughout the
program. Each time they were re-
peated, a variety of different methods
would be employed to convey the tar-
geted concept (Beck, McKeown, &
Kucan, 2002). Among the additional
strategies that were used were sand-
wiching and chaining (Andrews &
Taylor, 1987; Blumenthal-Kelly, 1995;
C. Erting et al., 2000), showing ASL
and English at the same time (Mather,
1989), asking viewers to sign along
with the characters, repetition and re-
inforcement of targeted skills (Fisch &
Trugilio, 2001), and providing Deaf
role models.
Ten vocabulary words were tar-
geted and incorporated into the video.
Five of these words were emphasized
for instruction. Per the recommenda-
tion by Rupley, Logan, and Nichols
(1998/1999) that words be taught in
sets that are conceptually related, each
of the five vocabulary concepts em-
phasized for instruction were related
to a farm theme (corn, tractor, farm,
pumpkin, and flower). They were also
each repeated throughout the video
in different contexts an average of 24
times per concept in signs and an av-
erage of 8 times per concept in fin-
gerspelling. On average, the printed
targeted vocabulary words were dis-
played 15 times each throughout the
video.
Participants
The study participants were deaf chil-
dren ages 3–6 years who used sign
language as a mode of communica-
tion. There were a total of 25 deaf chil-
dren ranging in age from 3 years to 6
years, 7 months (M = 4 years, 10
months). Fifteen were boys and 10
were girls. Fifteen of the children
were attending self-contained pro-
grams in Colorado at three different
preschools. Ten children were attend-
ing a residential school for the deaf in
the Midwest. Of the 25 participants, 8
had Deaf parents (all from the resi-
dential program) and 17 had hearing
parents. Fifteen additional children
began the study but were not allowed
to complete it due to absences during
the week of testing.
Setting
Data were collected in four different
preschool classrooms and one ele-
mentary classroom over 4 months’
time. Three of the programs were self-
contained and one was residential. In
each of the classrooms, there were
10–15 children ranging in age from 3
years to 6 years, 10 months.
In the three self-contained pro-
grams, all of the teachers were non -
native signers and followed a Total
Communication philosophy, using
both sign and spoken language in
their classrooms.
The fourth program was a bilingual/
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bicultural (ASL/English) residential
school for the deaf. All of the teach-
ers were fluent in ASL and incorpo-
rated the children’s first language
and culture into the curriculum
(Grosjean, 1992). Participants from
the residential school came from
four different classrooms. Two of the
teachers were Deaf and two were
hearing. The two classrooms with
hearing teachers had Deaf aides in
the classroom.
Procedures
Once parents signed a consent form,
the teachers in the programs sent
home a survey. Baseline data of the
participants were collected by means
of a survey of demographic informa-
tion. The survey was used to deter-
mine the children’s extent of hearing
loss, age of identification, age at which
the intervention program began, and
parental signing skills. Upon comple-
tion of all surveys, I contacted the
teachers of the participants to sched-
ule the video viewing sessions.
Children viewed the video three
times within one week. At each of the
sites, I went into the classroom to
bring the group of children to the
video viewing site. In two of the pro-
grams, children sat in a row on the
floor in front of the television. In the
other two programs, children sat in
chairs in front of the television be-
cause the TV/VCR cart was too high
for them to see from the floor.
Throughout each video viewing, I
remained quiet unless one of the chil-
dren directly asked me a question. If
asked a question, I either redirected
the child so as not to give the answer
or told the child that we would discuss
it later. However, if the child asked a
question related to the formal features
of the video, I answered the question.
If the children asked me to sign along
with the video (e.g., “Debbie, sign
corn”), I did so.
Data Analysis
In the present study, I used descrip-
tive procedures to analyze each of the
research questions. Engagement be-
haviors of preschool deaf preschool
children were analyzed by observing
videotapes of multiple video viewing
sessions. Engagement was defined as
the degree to which a child physi-
cally responded to the video through
movement or discussion, or reacted
to the video through facial expres-
sions (Crawley et al., 1999, 2002).
Each group of children watched the
43-minute video three times, for a to-
tal of 129 minutes of viewing. For each
group, the entire 129 minutes was
recorded on a digital camcorder. All of
the spontaneous signed and spoken
conversations were transcribed for
each child. Children’s behaviors were
also documented. Transcription was
completed in Microsoft Word and
color-coded for five categories: point-
ing to the television screen, signing of
a targeted vocabulary word, finger-
spelling of a targeted vocabulary word,
conversation related to the video, and
movement related to the video. Addi-
tional behaviors and conversations
were transcribed but not coded. Each
transcription was separated into Day
1, Day 2, and Day 3, and each coded
category was then counted for fre-
quency of occurrence. Next, a total was
obtained for each category, and the dif-
ference between Day 1 and Day 3 was
calculated. Totals were entered into a
Table 1
Day-to-Day Changes in Engagement Behaviors
Type of
engagement
Pointing to screena
Signing targeted vocabularyb
Additional commentsa
Fingerspelling targeted vocabularyb
Movements
aRefers to categories that included some literacy-related behaviors.
bRefers to categories in which all behaviors were literacy related.
ar
s
Microsoft Excel database; totals by cat-
egory were documented as well. Fol-
lowing these same methods, a second
researcher coded 20% of the transcrip-
tions. Interrater reliability was calcu-
lated at 97%.
Findings
Table 1 presents the frequency by day
of the five different types of engage-
ment behaviors across children: point-
ing to the screen, signing targeted
vocabulary words, conversation related
to the video, fingerspelling targeted vo-
cabulary words, and movements. The
increases by percentage between Day 1
and Day 3 are also listed in Table 1.
As Table 1 shows, the occurrence of
pointing to the screen increased 35%
from Day 1 to Day 2, but remained the
same for Day 3. By contrast, there was
a dramatic increase from the first day
to the third day in the signing of tar-
geted vocabulary words: 287%. Addi-
tional comments also had a large
increase, 130%, from the first day to
the third day. Though fingerspelling
occurred far less often than the other
engagement behaviors, it also showed
a large increase: 170% from Day 1 to
Day 3. Movements showed a more
modest increase, 55%.
As Figure 1 shows, on average, the
residential participants signed target
vocabulary more frequently on Day 1
than the self-contained participants
did. However, the average residential
student had only a slight increase
Difference (n) Increase (%)
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 1 to 3 Day 1 to Day 3
55 74 74 19 35%
70 157 271 201 287%
291 426 669 378 130%
20 14 54 34 170%
146 203 226 80 55%

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ENGAGEMENT BEHAVIORS OF DEAF PRESCHOOLERS

Figure 1 from Day 1 to Day 3, while the average

Mean Occurrence of Target Vocabulary by Day and School Setting self-contained student showed a steep
14 increase, surpassing the average resi-
dential student by Day 3.
12
Figure 2 displays the frequency of
comments signed or spoken by indi-
vidual children while engaging in the
10 video. As Figure 2 shows, children in
self-contained programs showed in-
8 creases in the number of times they
said or signed additional comments
on both Day 2 and Day 3, while the
6
children in residential programs did
Mean TARGVOCA

not show an improvement until Day 3.

4
SCHOOL Discussion
Teachers continually strive to have
2 Self-contained children engage in educational activ-
ities in the classroom. As previously
Residential
0 described, Williams and McLean (1997)
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3
analyzed deaf children’s engagement
DAY behaviors during picture-book read-
Note. Mean TARGVOCA, mean occurrence of target vocabulary. ing. Among these behaviors were imi-
tating signs, imitating facial expressions
of characters, clapping, and moving
side to side.
Figure 2 Crawley and colleagues (1999,
Mean Number of Signed and Spoken Comments, by Day and School Setting 2002) found that hearing children will
30 engage in a similar manner while view-
ing educational television. In a study
that employed repeated viewings of
Blue’s Clues, they found that hearing
children will engage through both ver-
bal and nonverbal behaviors. Crawley
20
and colleagues’ verbal categories in-
cluded answering questions and com-
menting on the program. Nonverbal
categories included pointing, gestur-
ing, nodding, and additional move-
Mean OTHERTAL

10 ments. The most common behaviors

were answering questions that had
SCHOOL been asked directly of the audience
and imitating activity on the screen.
Self-contained
Results from the present study indi-
cate that preschool deaf children en-
0 Residential
gage in an educational video in ASL
Day 1 Day 2 Day 3
both verbally (through speech and
DAY
sign) and nonverbally (through re-
Note. Mean OTHERTAL, mean number of signed and spoken comments. peated movements). Verbal behaviors

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included imitating signs while watch-
ing the video, both the targeted vo-
cabulary (271 times on Day 3) and
dialogue between characters (669
times on Day 3). In addition to imitat-
ing dialogue, the most frequent com-
ments that children made were literacy
related, such as predicting what would
happen next, commenting on the story,
and reading the text. Nonverbal behav-
iors included pointing, imitating facial
expressions (9 times on Day 3), and ad-
ditional movement behaviors (226
times on Day 3). All of these behaviors
are consistent with findings of research
related either to hearing children and
educational television or deaf children
and book sharing (Crawley et al., 1999;
Williams & McLean, 1997).
The extent to which children imi-
tated various segments of the video
might have been influenced by the ex-
tent to which the characters in the
video encouraged engagement. Re-
search related to educational televi-
sion programs such as Blue’s Clues
and Sesame Street indicates that cer-
tain strategies (see literature review)
are used in these programs to elicit
engagement (Crawley et al., 1999;
Fisch & Truglio, 2001). These success-
ful techniques for encouraging en-
gagement (e.g., talking directly to the
audience and giving them time to re-
spond before the answer is provided)
were incorporated into the develop-
ment of this video.
That this program repeatedly in-
corporates these features could have
positively influenced the engagement
responses of the participants. For ex-
ample, the main character, Peter, asks
the audience a question and asks them
to sign along much more frequently
than he asks them to copy move-
ments. Subsequently, it was found that
the participants commented on the
video or copied targeted vocabulary
words a total of 994 times on Day 3,
VOLUME 155, NO. 3, 2010
but copied movement behaviors only
226 times that day.
The fact that deaf children will en-
gage in an educational video in ASL is
promising for several reasons. First, it
indicates that this particular video was
effective for eliciting engagement be-
haviors. Second, it shows that strate-
gies used in educational television for
hearing children apply across commu-
nication modalities. Finally, it reflects
the potential for a new medium of in-
struction for preschool children, even
for those who have had minimal expo-
sure to ASL.
Engagement Across
Video Viewings
According to Anderson and Lorch
(1983), there is a “causal relationship
from comprehension to attention” (p.
14). This is reflected in the studies by
Crawley and colleagues (1999, 2002),
which found that children’s compre-
hension and engagement behaviors
(both verbal and nonverbal) greatly
increased with repetition. In the pres-
ent study, there was an increase in all
of the engagement behaviors for most
of the participants between Day 1 and
Day 3. This suggests that the engage-
ment behaviors might have increased
because the participants compre-
hended more of the video with each
viewing.
Since the core curriculum of the
video revolved around signing and fin-
gerspelling targeted vocabulary, it is
most informative to look at these two
categories. The increase in signing tar-
geted vocabulary is a remarkable 287%.
The large increase reflects the repeti-
tion of the vocabulary in the video.
While participants fingerspelled tar-
geted words much less than they
signed them, the increase in the fre-
quency of fingerspelling of these
words was still substantial: 170%.
However, it is important to note
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that each targeted vocabulary word
was repeated approximately 24 times
within the program, which provided a
greater opportunity for children to
sign these words along with the char-
acters in the video.
Additional categories of engage-
ment were the percentage of time
that the children commented about
the video (130% increase), movement
behaviors (55% increase), and point-
ing (35% increase). While the cate-
gory of pointing had the smallest
increase, and for some participants
even showed a decrease, it is possible
that this occurred because once the
children knew how to sign the vocab-
ulary, there was not as great a need to
point as there had been the first time
they watched. According to Hoffmeis-
ter (1978), pointing in sign language is
often one of the first grammatical con-
structions that children develop while
signing. The next complicated gram-
matical construction would be a point
plus a noun. As the comments reveal,
on Day 1 children frequently pointed
in response to the question, “Which
picture is next?” On subsequent days,
they labeled the vocabulary word or
pointed with a label.
Just as children love to read the
same book again and again, they also
love to watch videos repeatedly. Craw-
ley and colleagues’ (1999) research re-
veals that the more children engage,
the more they are able to compre-
hend. The more they comprehend,
the more they are able to learn. Re-
sults from the present study indicate a
potential similarity. If we know that
preschool deaf children will engage in
an educational video in ASL, that this
engagement increases with repeated
viewings, and that increased engage-
ment reflects increased comprehen-
sion, it follows that viewing videos
repeatedly could have a positive im-
pact on learning.
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ENGAGEMENT BEHAVIORS OF DEAF PRESCHOOLERS
Engagement According to
Signing Skills
Previous research indicates that there
is a relationship between ASL ability
and English literacy development
(Hoffmeister, 2000; Prinz & Strong,
1998). For the present study, two as-
sumptions were made. The first was
that the older children among the
study participants would have better
signing skills than the younger chil-
dren. This assumption was based on
children’s language development—
that is, children who have been ex-
posed to sign longer will have better
signing skills (Hoffmeister & Wilbur,
1980). The second assumption was
that children from the residential
school, which used ASL as its primary
mode of communication, would have
better ASL skills than participants
from the self-contained programs,
which subscribed to a Total Commu-
nication philosophy. Another reason
for this assumption is that 8 of 10 of
the participants from the residential
program had Deaf parents. Research
on Deaf children of Deaf parents
shows that they tend to outperform
deaf children with hearing parents on
measures of ASL ability (Mayberry,
1993). Taking these two assumptions
into account, it is interesting to exam-
ine the results of engagement behav-
iors in the present study.
Per the active viewing theory (An-
derson & Lorch, 1983), if children from
the residential program were able to
comprehend more of the video on Day
1, one would assume that these chil-
dren would exhibit more engagement
behaviors on Day 1 than participants
from a self-contained program. The re-
sults show that children from the resi-
dential program engaged more on Day
1 than participants from the self-con-
tained programs in four of five engage-
ment categories: pointing, signing
targeted vocabulary, fingerspelling tar-
geted vocabulary, and movement.
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VOLUME 155, NO. 3, 2010
On Day 1, residential school stu-
dents (10 participants) signed targeted
vocabulary words a total of 45 times
and fingerspelled them a total of 17
times. Participants from self-contained
programs signed targeted vocabulary
words a total of 25 times (15 partici-
pants) and fingerspelled a total of 3
times. These results indicate the possi-
bility that the children from the resi-
dential program comprehended more
of the video on Day 1 than the self-con-
tained participants.
However, in looking at participants
as individuals, print must also be taken
into account. There were several older
children from self-contained programs
who engaged more on the first day.
This could be due to the fact that they
comprehended more of the printed
words in the video, which thus allowed
them to understand more of the video
as a whole, regardless of signing skills.
While there were not enough partici-
pants in the study to make it possible
to come to any conclusions regarding
the statistical significance of differ-
ences in engagement behaviors, data
on these behaviors on Day 1 reflect the
possibility that children from ASL pro-
grams had greater signing vocabulary
than those from self-contained pro-
grams prior to the first day of video
viewing.
In order to form a clearer picture of
the difference between children from
residential programs and those from
self-contained programs, it is more in-
formative to examine the types of com-
ments made by children by age and
program type. There were two specific
examples that represent the difference
between children on the basis of level
of signing skills. While all of the chil-
dren’s comments increased, the types
of comments that were made seemed
to differ. There were two older girls
from self-contained programs who
were particularly oral. These children
tended to ask more questions such as
“What happened?” In contrast, the
older students from the residential
school, who had Deaf parents, tended
to make more comments about special
effects of the video, asking questions
like “How do those pictures disappear
into the children’s hands?” I believe
they were able to achieve this deeper
level of dialogue because they under-
stood more of what was happening in
the story, while the children with less
signing skills had to focus their atten-
tion more on the story line of the
video.
Another example of variation in
comments was related to the “word
game” segment of the video. During
this game, the vocabulary words ap-
pear above the children’s heads in a
specific color. A sentence appears on a
magic easel and the children in the
video see if the word above their head
matches the targeted word in the sen-
tence. Peter asks the audience if it
matches. If the match is correct, the
word changes color. During this seg-
ment, many of the participants re-
sponded by signing the word or the
word and the color of the word (e.g.,
CORN or CORN YELLOW). However,
there were several participants who
commented only on the color of the
word (e.g., YELLOW). Of the partici-
pants who focused on the color only,
two were the 3-year-olds from the resi-
dential program and one was a 5-year-
old from a self-contained program.
This example illustrates the difference
in the level of comprehension of these
children. However, it is important to
acknowledge that participants of all
ages engaged in the word game de-
spite the variability in their ages and
signing skills.
It is important to note that the per-
centage of deaf children with deaf par-
ents in the sample (25%) was larger
than in the overall deaf population
(10%). Regardless, there was an in-
crease in engagement behaviors for all
AMERICAN ANNALS OF THE DEAF
17907-AAD155.3 10/7/10 10:42 AM Page 367
of the 24 participants with hearing
parents in the sample (75%).
Overall, these results indicate that
regardless of ASL skills or age, all par-
ticipants engaged in the video and did
so in a variety of ways. These results
support the active viewing theory (An-
derson & Lorch, 1983), which posits
that children are active viewers of tel-
evision. Occurrences of each of the
engagement behavior categories in-
creased with repeated video viewings,
and there appeared to be enough
variation within the video to elicit en-
gagement behaviors across age and
signing backgrounds.
Limitations of the Study
One limitation of the present study is
related to constraints of the setting of
video viewing. By viewing the video in
school, the children might have en-
gaged more than they would have at
home because they felt they had to fol-
low school or classroom rules. On the
other hand, the children might have
felt more restricted as to what types of
engagement behaviors were allowed.
They might have felt more freedom to
stand up and move around had they
been watching at home. It also would
have been better if all of the groups
had been seated in a similar fashion.
As previously mentioned, some chil-
dren watched while seated on the
floor while other groups sat in chairs.
It is possible that their seating posi-
tions influenced the degree to which
the children felt comfortable engaging
in the video.
In addition, it would have been ideal
to have a larger sample size. With a
larger sample, that was also equally di-
vided between participants with Deaf
parents and participants with hearing
parents, additional differences between
these groups could have been ana-
lyzed, as well as differences between
groups who viewed the video at home
and those who viewed it at school.
VOLUME 155, NO. 3, 2010
Implications for Future
Practice
The present study shows that deaf
children will engage in an educational
video in ASL regardless of their back-
ground. The study participants varied
by signing skills, educational setting,
degree of hearing loss, and ASL expo-
sure. However, even without an adult
facilitating interaction, children with
minimal exposure to ASL still engaged
in a 43-minute video in ASL with no
sound.
There are currently limited curricu-
lum materials incorporating bilingual
(ASL/English) strategies targeted for
preschool deaf children. This video
could be used in educational settings
as a means of supplementing instruc-
tional practices related to language
and literacy skills such as reinforcing
vocabulary development in both ASL
and English. Because this video was
effective across age and signing skills,
it could be used in multiple ways de-
pending on children’s individual
needs. Teachers could show either
partial or complete segments of the
video to children individually or in
groups, to target ASL or literacy skills
such as vocabulary development, let-
ter recognition, print awareness, com-
prehension, sequencing skills, or
understanding of story elements.
The video also presents an envi-
ronment rich with Deaf culture and
Deaf role models. Exposure to Deaf
culture could help strengthen chil-
dren’s identity within the Deaf com-
munity. For preschool children who
have never interacted with Deaf com-
munity members, the video provides
an opportunity to expose these chil-
dren to cultural aspects such as ways
of getting attention, culturally appro-
priate introductions, name signs, and
communication through a visual/ges-
tural modality. Informal results from
the present study indicate that chil-
dren were aware of these cultural ele-
e d a n
d r d
n
S
H
ix
t y
O n e
Ye
160
ar
s
ments in the video. Adults could use
this video to foster children’s under-
standing of cultural aspects unique to
the Deaf community, which could in
turn contribute to building both self-
esteem and identity awareness in deaf
children.
Implications for
Future Research
The development of additional videos
could provide for multiple research
opportunities. With additional videos,
a more extensive curriculum could be
developed that could expand on the
literacy skills incorporating letter
recognition, sequencing, and other
comprehension skills. In addition to
skills related to Deaf culture, ASL
structure could be expanded upon
and tested for effectiveness. If this is a
medium in which children can learn,
then educational videos in ASL that ex-
plore other subjects such as science,
social studies, and mathematics could
also be developed and investigated.
Because of the serious lack of edu-
cational materials targeted toward par-
ents and teachers of preschool deaf
children, materials could be developed
to supplement the videos. These mate-
rials could provide activities for both
parents and educators to use with chil-
dren before, during, or after video
viewings to facilitate engagement and
learning. They could be tested for ef-
fectiveness in both home and school
settings.
It is crucial that experts in the field
of deaf education start to focus re-
search on preschool deaf children, es-
pecially research related to language
and literacy development. Research
on the effectiveness of educational
videos for deaf preschool children has
been minimally pursued. Given the
potential of educational media in ASL
as a tool for facilitating language and
literacy development in preschool
deaf children, researchers need to
367
AMERICAN ANNALS OF THE DEAF
17907-AAD155.3 10/7/10 10:42 AM Page 368
ENGAGEMENT BEHAVIORS OF DEAF PRESCHOOLERS
begin examining the many possibili-
ties for research and development re-
lated to curriculum-based educational
media in ASL.
Note
I wish to express my thanks to the Col-
orado Department of Education for
funding the development of the video
discussed in the present study.—The
Author
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