Jim Kyle

Sign Language: the study of deaf people and their language

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. The deaf community 2. British Sign Language 3. Historical aspects of BSL 4. Sign language acquisition 5. The building blocks of sign language 6. The structure of signs 7. Sign morphology and syntax: the grammar of BSL 8. Comparing sign languages 9. Learning and using BSL 10. The psychology of sign 11. Sign language interpreting 12. Sign language in schools 13. Which sign language? 14. Developments for sign language Appendix References Subject index Index of signs in the text Index of names in the text.

Effects of parental style of interaction on language development in very young severe and profound deaf children

AIMS (1) To study the influence of different styles of parent-child interaction in the language development of very young deaf children. (2) To find out if there are differences in parent-child interaction between two groups of very young deaf children following an Aural/Oral or a Bilingual approach to education. METHODS Subjects were selected from all deaf children in the County of Avon who were under 3 years of age at the time of first assessment, had severe or profound, bilateral, sensorineural hearing loss and no associated medical problems. There were 16 children and families at the start of the project but only 13 completed all the assessments. The Bristol Language Developmental Scales (BLADES) was used to assess both sign and spoken language development. Interaction was studied through analysis of contingency and book-reading applied to selected periods of 3 min from four videorecorded sessions, taken at 3 months intervals for a period of 1 year. RESULTS From the 13 children studied, only seven presented with some degree of expressive language measurable by the BLADES. Analysis of contingency showed that parents present with higher percentage of both Direct Related Acts and ON then their children Acts (On Acts: where both individuals are involved in the same task). Regarding bookreading, it was observed that parents often attend to child initiatives and acknowledge most of them but they make little effort to expand or use the childs message as topic for further conversation. In the reduced sample of seven children with expressive language, those with better language development had parents with: (a) higher percentage of DR acts; (b) higher percentage of ON acts; (c) higher percentage of appropriate responses to child communicative initiatives. CONCLUSIONS In this small group language development seems to be facilitated by encouraging child participation and using a more contingent and child centred interaction. No significant differences were found between oral and bilingual families in terms of quality of interaction.

A perceptually optimised video coding system for sign language communication at low bit rates

Abstract The ability to communicate remotely through the use of video as promised by wireless networks and already practised over fixed networks, is for deaf people as important as voice telephony is for hearing people. Sign languages are visual–spatial languages and as such demand good image quality for interaction and understanding. In this paper, we first analyse the sign language viewers eye-gaze, based on the results of an eye-tracking study that we conducted, as well as the video content involved in sign language person-to-person communication. Based on this analysis we propose a sign language video coding system using foveated processing, which can lead to bit rate savings without compromising the comprehension of the coded sequence or equivalently produce a coded sequence with higher comprehension value at the same bit rate. We support this claim with the results of an initial comprehension assessment trial of such coded sequences by deaf users. The proposed system constitutes a new paradigm for coding sign language image sequences at limited bit rates.

Optimized sign language video coding based on eye-tracking analysis

The imminent arrival of mobile video telephony will enable deaf people to communicate - as hearing people have been able to do for a some time now - anytime/anywhere in their own language sign language. At low bit rates coding of sign language sequences is very challenging due to the high level of motion and the need to maintain good image quality to aid with understanding. This paper presents optimised coding of sign language video at low bit rates in a way that will favour comprehension of the compressed material by deaf users. Our coding suggestions are based on an eye-tracking study that we have conducted which allows us to analyse the visual attention of sign language viewers. The results of this study are included in this paper. Analysis and results for two coding methods, one using MPEG-4 video objects and the second using foveation filtering are presented. Results with foveation filtering are very promising, offering a considerable decrease in bit rate in a way which is compatible with the visual attention patterns of deaf people, as these were recorded in the eye tracking study.

The current health of the signing Deaf community in the UK compared with the general population: a cross-sectional study

Objectives To assess the current health of the Deaf community in the UK and compare with the general population. Design A quota sample of adult Deaf British Sign Language (BSL) users underwent a health assessment and interview in 2012–2013. Comparative data were obtained from the Health Survey for England (HSE) 2011 and the Quality Outcomes Framework (QOF) 2012. Setting Participants completed a structured interview and health assessment at seven Bupa centres across the UK, supported in BSL by Deaf advisers and interpreters. Participants 298 Deaf people, 20–82 years old, 47% male, with 12% from ethnic minorities. Main outcome measures Self–reported health conditions, medication usage, tobacco and alcohol consumption; measured blood pressure (BP), body mass index, fasting blood sugar and lipid profile. Results Rates of obesity in the Deaf sample were high, especially in those over 65 years, and 48% were in a high risk group for serious illness. High BP readings were obtained in 37% of Deaf people (21% in HSE): 29% were unaware of this (6% in HSE). Only 42% of Deaf people being treated for hypertension had adequate control, compared with 62% of the general population. Deaf people with self-reported cardiovascular disease (CVD) were significantly less than the general population. One-third of Deaf participants had total cholesterol >5 mmol/L but although control rates were high compared with HSE, treatment rates for self-reported CVD were half the general population rate. Eleven per cent of Deaf participants had blood sugar at prediabetic or diabetic levels, and 77% of those at prediabetic levels were unaware of it. Deaf respondents self-reported more depression (31% of women, 14% of men), but less smoking (8%) and alcohol intake (2–8 units/week). Conclusions Deaf peoples health is poorer than that of the general population, with probable underdiagnosis and undertreatment of chronic conditions putting them at risk of preventable ill health.

Access to primary care affects the health of Deaf people

> ‘On Wednesday, Hazel (a Deaf British Sign Language user) felt unwell at work. She went to a walk-in clinic, where she had to communicate with the nurse by writing notes (there were no interpreters on call). Hazel can read, but like many Deaf people this is at a basic level. The nurse diagnosed a problem with her knee but told her to go to her GP, which Hazel did first thing on Thursday, but had to sit around for a couple of hours to be seen. Again, as there was no interpreter at short notice, she had to tell the GP about her ‘stiffness’ on her left side by writing. She could not follow what the doctor was saying except ‘she should go to hospital’ to be checked. She went to the emergency department, which entailed another wait and more written communication, where she was kept in overnight and on Friday morning the doctor (at least she thinks it was a doctor) wrote down she ‘probably had a mild stroke’. Since she was feeling a bit better, she was told that she could go home and rest. Her condition worsened over the weekend until she could not hold a cup with her left hand. On Monday morning she went back to the GP, who took one look at her and sent her by ambulance straight to hospital for emergency admission. She was admitted for a week and was discharged back to the care of her GP, who had this time managed to get an interpreter. During this consultation it emerged that she had stopped her antihypertensives because she did not like the tablets, and she was unaware that this was meant to be a lifelong treatment.’ This story was reported in a recent study of the health of Deaf sign …

A video coding system for sign language communication at low bit rates

The ability to communicate remotely through the use of video as promised by wireless networks and already practised over fixed networks, is for deaf people as important as voice telephony is for hearing people. Sign languages are visual-spatial languages and as such demand good image quality for interaction and understanding. In this paper, based on analysis of the viewers perceptual behavior and the video content involved we propose a sign language video coding system using foveated processing, which can lead to bit rate savings without compromising the comprehension of the coded sequence. We support this claim with the results of an initial comprehension assessment trial of such coded sequences by deaf users.

Providing sign language models: strategies used by deaf mothers

a study of three children observed every three weeks during the middle part of the second year. At each observation the children were given a test of means-ends co-ordination. From Piaget’s theory, the test should provide a fairly direct measure of cognitive growth. The children were also videotaped while they and their caretakers played with cooking utensils and looked at pictures. The videotapes were analysed for integration within, firstly, successive speech forms and, secondly, successive play forms. Using microanalytic techniques, integrated sequences were scrutinized for signs of structured rather than stepwise creation. The results were correlated with means-ends performance.

Measuring British Sign Language in deaf children at school

talking to the children. Analysis of the initial uses of words revealed that there was a very close correspondence between the way in which the children used a particular word and the mother’s most frequent use of the word. However, when the children’s subsequent uses of the same words were analysed, it was found that their relationship to maternal use was much weaker. These findings are considered in the light of accounts of early lexical development (particularly Barrett 1986) and developmental changes in the representation of linguistic knowledge (Karmiloff-Smith 1988).

Attention and Belief: Deaf mothers communicating with their infants

opportunities for meaning acquisition of a new word. In a natural situation children frequently hear words, the meaning of which remains unknown to them for a long time. The question is whether those words are recognized by kindergartners or if attachment of at least some meaning to a word is a necessary condition for recognition. In the present paper a new method on word recognition will be introduced, which appears to be quite suitable to kindergartners. The examination of the relationship between word recognition and semantic knowledge is restricted to the season-names. Tentative preliminary research suggested that kindergartners might have no, or only a vague, conceptual and semantic