Current Research Projects/Funding

My research interests may be divided into three related areas: 

1. the investigation of patterns of interaction among mothers and their deaf children; 
2. the cognitive development of deaf children; and 
3. the social context for the enculturation of young children into Deaf culture, across a variety of cultural settings. These interests focus on identifying social contexts supportive of cognitive growth, with a view to informing early intervention and educational planning for deaf children.

My first area of interest involves the application of Vygotskian socio-cognitive developmental theory to the study of mother-child interaction in a problem-solving context when childhood deafness is a factor. I have found striking and consistent similarities in the instructional styles of hearing mothers of hearing children and deaf mothers of deaf children and in their children's subsequent independent performance. By contrast, hearing mothers were found to be more controlling and directive toward their deaf children than either of the other two groups of mothers, and their children were less effective and independent problem-solvers. I have attempted to uncover specifics of the means by which deaf mothers accommodate their children's hearing loss in mother-child interactions, and have identified distinct patterns of behavioural and discourse strategies. Under the auspices of a SSHRC grant I am currently investigating the effectiveness of instructing hearing mothers of deaf children in the use of these strategies, with the aim of facilitating the development of problem-solving skills in their children.

My second area of interest involves the investigation of a signed form of private, or self-guiding, speech from a Vygotskian developmental perspective. Private speech has been found to be a crucial index of and stage in the cognitive development of hearing children, and I have found that deaf children of deaf parents use a signed form of private speech at a developmentally appropriate sequence and rate. In contrast, deaf children of hearing parents use a delayed but sequentially equivalent form of private speech. This area of inquiry sheds light on the role of the early language environment in cognitive development, and the implications of cognitive self-instruction of deaf children are now being explored.

The focus of my third area of interest is the process by means of which young deaf children are, or are not, enculturated into Deaf culture. Videotaped data were compiled during the 1995-96 academic year of the interactions among new deaf arrivals and their older deaf peers at the Siteki School for the Deaf in Swaziland. By way of comparison, similar data are currently being videotaped on new deaf arrivals and their older deaf peers at an integrated elementary school in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The videotapes from each cultural setting will be analyzed from a Vygotskian perspective, in an attempt to determine patterns of interaction which may contribute to the encoulturation of the younger deaf children.

Taking my three research interests together, I am contributing to an improved understanding of the cognitive development of deaf children, with a view to informing both theory and practice.