See the Sound: Visual Phonics.

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rockdrummer

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Any thoughts or comments on this?

See the Sound: Visual Phonics. It is a system of handshapes and written symbols that represent the sounds in English. It is not a communication system like cued speech. Instead it complements the teaching of phonics and phonemic awareness for students who cannot hear all or some of the sounds in words. The system was developed by a mother with a deaf son.

The teachers, speech therapists, and students are excited with the implementation of Visual Phonics. Teachers find they have a new tool that they can use in teaching spelling rules, pronunciation of new vocabulary, and decoding unfamiliar words in reading. Speech therapists have found it helps students with articulation and speech reading lessons since the handshapes mimic the tongue or mouth shape for each sound. Students have found that letter combinations have rules and are not just a random sequence of symbols. Finally, they have a way of figuring out the subtle differences between similar looking words! Parents are curious about this new approach and are eager to learn it too.

Beverly Trezek, a researcher at DePaul University in Chicago, is investigating how the use of Visual Phonics combined with Direct Instruction may improve the reading decoding skills of deaf readers. She is a teacher of the deaf with a Phd in reading. SASED staff is anxious to follow her future studies and have volunteered to be a part of her research if she needs more subjects.
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jillio said:
Yep, focus is on oral language skills. Stated in numerous remarks within the article.
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Are you totally against oral skills or just as a first priority? I have to imagine at some point a deaf person will need speech. At mininum to say "I'm deaf". I can also see where the ability to speak would be useful in many situations.
 
rockdrummer said:
Are you totally against oral skills or just as a first priority? I have to imagine at some point a deaf person will need speech. At mininum to say "I'm deaf". I can also see where the ability to speak would be useful in many situations.
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Of course I am not against oral skills. I am against oral skills as the first and only priority for a deaf child because of the negative effects of doing so. I have said on numerous occasions that oral skills are useful, and they are a tool I provided to my own child. But oral skills cannot be equated with language fluency in a deaf child. Once again, I propose that children be given exposure to both, not one. That is a mistake that not only you seem to make. Being opposed to an oral only environment does not mean that I find oral skills unnecessary. It simply means that I believe a child should be exposed to any form of language that will assist in language acquisiton and literacy issues. I say use both. An oral environment uses only one.

And my beliefs had nothing to do with my response to the article. Quite simply, no matter what I beleive in, the focus of the article and the methodology described is focused on oral language. My response implied neither agreement nor disagreement, but simply stated what is.
 
jillio said:
Of course I am not against oral skills. I am against oral skills as the first and only priority for a deaf child because of the negative effects of doing so. I have said on numerous occasions that oral skills are useful, and they are a tool I provided to my own child. But oral skills cannot be equated with language fluency in a deaf child. Once again, I propose that children be given exposure to both, not one. That is a mistake that not only you seem to make. Being opposed to an oral only environment does not mean that I find oral skills unnecessary. It simply means that I believe a child should be exposed to any form of language that will assist in language acquisiton and literacy issues. I say use both. An oral environment uses only one.

And my beliefs had nothing to do with my response to the article. Quite simply, no matter what I beleive in, the focus of the article and the methodology described is focused on oral language. My response implied neither agreement nor disagreement, but simply stated what is.
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Thanks for clearifying. The only reason I asked is that I see you comment quite a bit on th oral approach. I now know where you stand. Do you think visual phonics is a good tool in teaching oral and/or speech reading skills? (when appropriate)
 
rockdrummer said:
Thanks for clearifying. The only reason I asked is that I see you comment quite a bit on th oral approach. I now know where you stand. Do you think visual phonics is a good tool in teaching oral and/or speech reading skills? (when appropriate)
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If used in conjuction with sign, it is redundant. If, however, it is used in a strictly oral atmosphere, it could be useful in reducingthe amiguity. However, it does nothing to convey concept. As a tool to help with speech therapy, it could have useful implications, I suppose.
 
The Efficacy of Utilizing a Phonics Treatment
Package with Middle School Deaf and
Hard-of-Hearing Students
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Link to full article: The Efficacy of Utilizing a Phonics Treatment Package with Middle School Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students -- Trezek and Malmgren 10 (3): 256 -- The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education
Research indicates that the acquisition of phonemic
awareness and phonic skills is highly correlated with later
success in learning to read. Numerous studies support the
hypothesis that deaf and hard-of-hearing children are able
to utilize alternative systems to develop phonological awareness
that are not dependent on the ability to hear sounds or
accurately pronounce words. A quasi-experimental, pre- and
posttest design was employed in this study that evaluated the
efficacy of implementing a phonics treatment package with
middle-school-aged students. Results indicate that treatment
students were able to demonstrate acquisition and generalization
of the phonic skills taught. Additionally, acquisition
of these skills did not appear to be related to degree of
hearing loss.
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Implications of Utilizing a Phonics-Based Reading
Curriculum With Children Who Are Deaf or
Hard of Hearing
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Link to full article :Implications of Utilizing a Phonics-Based Reading Curriculum With Children Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing -- Trezek and Wang 11 (2): 202 -- The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education

Extensive literature has reiterated the reading difficulties of
students who are deaf or hard of hearing. Building and expanding
upon the work of B. J. Trezek and K. W. Malmgren
(2005), this study demonstrated that given 1 year of instruction
from a phonics-based reading curriculum supplemented
by Visual Phonics, kindergarten and first-grade students who
were deaf or hard of hearing could demonstrate improvements
in beginning reading skills as measured by standardized
assessments of (a) word reading, (b) pseudoword
decoding, and (c) reading comprehension. Furthermore,
the acquisition of beginning reading skills did not appear
to be related to degree of hearing loss. In this study, students
with various degrees of hearing loss benefited equally well
from this phonics-based reading curriculum supplemented
by Visual Phonics.
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Rockdrummer

Nice article about Visual Phonics. It looks like a good idea, though I need to see how it can work in an environment where communication between teachers and kids are unhindered and natural.

I noticed that all the teachers was hearies. The one was educated in special pedagogy, no mentions of deaf study or sign langauge, and the two others are from the pre bi-bi era. It says nothing about wether the teachers are fluent in sign language or not, and from what we have seen many places, the changes are big they are not(though they may be fluent).

In a SEE/TC environment, I am sure the visual phonics can help kids go from weak to less weak.

The most striking finding was that the level of hearing loss had no impact on the results and gains in litereacy, they all improved equally. Time to focus less on CI and HA perhaps, and just let kids be kids, wearing what they want? That's the message in this article as I understand it; with right methods, hearing level does not matter.

I am not going to comment the other abstract from Deaf Journal that was spammed in this forum. Perhaps you could elaborate what the point with those articles are and what you want to dicuss with the world?

A own post with a collection with links to those abstracts, and a point would be much more interesting, it's possible to delete posts, and put them in one collection in one post?
 
That is very interesting. It's nice to know they are incorporating things to help them a bit easier. Any little bits help.

I know that I could use some help with words with other visual cues because it is easy to miss them by just reading lips.
 
rockdrummer said:
Are you totally against oral skills or just as a first priority? I have to imagine at some point a deaf person will need speech. At mininum to say "I'm deaf". I can also see where the ability to speak would be useful in many situations.
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My brother had no speech skills whatsover and he is doing fine. He is happy, working, and living an independent life. He is in 30s and so far so good. :)
 
rockdrummer said:
Thanks for clearifying. The only reason I asked is that I see you comment quite a bit on th oral approach. I now know where you stand. Do you think visual phonics is a good tool in teaching oral and/or speech reading skills? (when appropriate)
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I know two children whose first language was ASL are now developing speech skills and they use the phonetical approach to identify their sight words. They are both profoundly deaf with no listening devices. I think by having a strong language in ASL really made the difference for them to make the transition.
 
flip said:
Rockdrummer

Nice article about Visual Phonics. It looks like a good idea, though I need to see how it can work in an environment where communication between teachers and kids are unhindered and natural.

I noticed that all the teachers was hearies. The one was educated in special pedagogy, no mentions of deaf study or sign langauge, and the two others are from the pre bi-bi era. It says nothing about wether the teachers are fluent in sign language or not, and from what we have seen many places, the changes are big they are not(though they may be fluent).

In a SEE/TC environment, I am sure the visual phonics can help kids go from weak to less weak.

The most striking finding was that the level of hearing loss had no impact on the results and gains in litereacy, they all improved equally. Time to focus less on CI and HA perhaps, and just let kids be kids, wearing what they want? That's the message in this article as I understand it; with right methods, hearing level does not matter.

I am not going to comment the other abstract from Deaf Journal that was spammed in this forum. Perhaps you could elaborate what the point with those articles are and what you want to dicuss with the world?

A own post with a collection with links to those abstracts, and a point would be much more interesting, it's possible to delete posts, and put them in one collection in one post?
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sorry flip about what you consider spamming. Those threads were started by me. The reasons are for reference material that I believe to be mostly reliable and objective. I know for myself this information is helpful and thought I would share it so that others may benefit as well. I'm sorry if I caused any inconvience.
 
shel90 said:
My brother had no speech skills whatsover and he is doing fine. He is happy, working, and living an independent life. He is in 30s and so far so good. :)
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Tha'ts great for him. He must do a lot of writing then. I'm sure that some are fine with that but I have also heard from others that hate having to write all the time. As long as he is happy, tha'ts the important thing. I always say live and let live.
 
rockdrummer said:
sorry flip about what you consider spamming. Those threads were started by me. The reasons are for reference material that I believe to be mostly reliable and objective. I know for myself this information is helpful and thought I would share it so that others may benefit as well. I'm sorry if I caused any inconvience.
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No prob, didn't mean to sound angry, sorry, and no harm done here. Thought it would be easier for us to navigate if your favorite links and abstracts was put in one post. Also not all of those abstracts are available in full text for free, you could for example state why you think those abstracts are worth a read and perhaps spend a couple of your own words. Makes it easier to respond a thread, but nevermind, I am not gonna force someone here :)
 
flip said:
No prob, didn't mean to sound angry, sorry, and no harm done here. Thought it would be easier for us to navigate if your favorite links and abstracts was put in one post. Also not all of those abstracts are available in full text for free, you could for example state why you think those abstracts are worth a read and perhaps spend a couple of your own words. Makes it easier to respond a thread, but nevermind, I am not gonna force someone here :)
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Thanks flip. The last thing I want to do is cause any problems. As far as the abstracts, I only ment to put the ones up that had links to full articles for free. I may have accidently put up just an abstract and I'm sorry for that. I personally like to have them in seperate threads becuause they are in fact seperate topics but most are catagorized under deaf education (where I placed them) One thing that triggered me to do this is when navigating this site in the deaf education forum, I didn't find a whole lot of objective material there. If you navigate there now you will see all the threads and my hope is that this information be catagorized and available for future parents or anyone interested in this information and that it may be helpful to them. Please don't take this wrong but listening to the opinions and experiences of others is only part of the information gathering process for me. I also need some balance from objective sources. I personally believe that it's only fair to hear from the left the right and the middle before making decisions about my deaf child.
 
rockdrummer said:
Tha'ts great for him. He must do a lot of writing then. I'm sure that some are fine with that but I have also heard from others that hate having to write all the time. As long as he is happy, tha'ts the important thing. I always say live and let live.
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He types what he wants to say on his pager. Much faster. :)
 
The elementary school my son went to before in another county, they used visual phonics in their Deaf classrooms. It is a total communication school, however, all of the teachers and their interpreter aids are fluent in sign language and I have observed in their classrooms and the first language they use with the student is ASL. The visual phonics they were trained in at Gallaudet. They told me they use it primarily to teach the kids how to spell. They do not focus on talking execpt if the kid wants to. I have never seen them force a kid to talk. Some talk very well and some dont. Even the speech therapist was fluent in sign language., she worked on the different strengths of each child. I really like that school and many Deaf send their Deaf kids to that school that live in that county. Then they send them to the Deaf residential school when they get into middle school.
that is what i have observed.
Judy
 
rockdrummer said:
Are you totally against oral skills or just as a first priority? I have to imagine at some point a deaf person will need speech. At mininum to say "I'm deaf". I can also see where the ability to speak would be useful in many situations.
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On the flip side, I can see where the ability to sign would be useful in many situations for hearing people. Like when one is intubed, for example. :wiggle:
 
aslpup said:
The elementary school my son went to before in another county, they used visual phonics in their Deaf classrooms. It is a total communication school, however, all of the teachers and their interpreter aids are fluent in sign language and I have observed in their classrooms and the first language they use with the student is ASL. The visual phonics they were trained in at Gallaudet. They told me they use it primarily to teach the kids how to spell. They do not focus on talking execpt if the kid wants to. I have never seen them force a kid to talk. Some talk very well and some dont. Even the speech therapist was fluent in sign language., she worked on the different strengths of each child. I really like that school and many Deaf send their Deaf kids to that school that live in that county. Then they send them to the Deaf residential school when they get into middle school.
that is what i have observed.
Judy
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Sounds as if your son may have been fortunate enoughto get into a school that comes close to functioning under the true principles of TC. Many classrooms don't, especially in the mainstreamed elementary years.
 
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