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ODYSSEY

New Directions in Deaf Education

WE ARE NOW ACCEPTING ARTICLE SUBMISSIONS FOR THE 2023 ISSUE OF ODYSSEY ON THE TOPIC OF “ACCESS AND EQUITY IN DEAF EDUCATION.”

Call for Submissions
2023 ISSUE

Access and Equity in Deaf Education

View the 2023 issue in its entirety here

This issue of Odyssey takes a look at how schools, professionals, and families are working together to ensure deaf and hard of hearing students across the United States are being provided with equitable access to education, making certain they have the resources and services they need to fully participate and succeed in both school and the community—as young children, as students, and, later, as adults.

Fourteen articles, written by a total of 35 professional and parent authors, address the following topics:

  • Striving for equity in the classroom through professional development
  • How early exposure to American Sign Language (ASL), including utilizing the Guided Viewing Framework, can impact literacy development in deaf and hard of hearing children
  • Role of captioned media in literacy development
  • Importance of Deaf Role Models for d/Deaf children and their families
  • Strategies to support students with language deprivation
  • How teachers can utilize a newly developed ASL Literature Wheel to categorize literary works in order to effectively offer them in the classroom
  • How the Equity in Deaf Education Team and supporters worked together to restructure deaf education in the Los Angeles Unified School District in order to make it more accessible and equitable
  • 10 hard-won lessons about being deaf and how it can be a strength 
  • How speech-language pathologists can work to ensure their language interventions are effective and equitable
  • Utilizing visual tools with deaf learners
  • Importance of family and connections in language access
  • Speech to text and text to speech—listening devices as tools for supporting students
  • Low-cost and no-cost resources for families to improve early access to sign language
  • Restructuring deaf education systems to attain true equity for all

We invite you to share your own stories with us on X (formerly known as Twitter) and Facebook with the hashtags of #ClercCenter and #DeafEd or to reach out to us at Odyssey@gallaudet.edu with your thoughts

Issues

  • Professional Development and the Ongoing Quest for Equity: Reflections of a 15-Year Veteran in Deaf and ASL Education by Sara Stallard
  • Accessibility and Enrichment: Captioned Media Promotes Literacy by Cindy Camp
  • Supporting Deaf Students Who Experience Language Deprivation by Leala Holcomb, Hannah Dostal, and Kimberly A. Wolbers
  • Road to Resolution: Forming a Team, Documenting Discoveries, and Making an Impact by the Equity in Deaf Education Team
  • Beautiful Utility: Visual Tools Make Teaching More Effective … and Fun! by Michael E. Skyer
  • Access and Equity in ASL Acquisition: Resources to Improve Early Access to Sign Language by Todd LaMarr, Lisalee Egbert, and Bee Vicars

Seeking Submissions
for the 2023 Issue of Odyssey

THEME: Access and Equity in Deaf Education

The next issue of Odyssey will focus on how deaf and hard of hearing students are being provided with equitable access to education, ensuring they have the resources and services they need to fully participate and succeed in both school and the community—as young children, as students, and, later, as adults.

Often the concept of “access” is defined by experts or regular users of a given system instead of according to the experiences and expectations of exceptional users who engage with the system. Who defines accessibility? The deaf or hard of hearing child or the people surrounding that child? In addition to determining what access means and how it will be provided, accessibility by itself may not be enough. Abundance of experience and ease of use are also important, especially in interactions involving language and socialization. Full and comfortable participation may be the ultimate measure of equitable access.

We want to know how families and educators are providing equitable access and enabling full participation for their deaf and hard of hearing children or students not only through technology but also through programming, activities, and strategies that promote maximum opportunities for learning and interaction:

 

    • Which assistive tools and online technologies have been shown to support academic success and social-emotional development? How can we measure the efficacy of such tools?

 

    • What unique strategies help create inclusive environments and promote an abundance of accessible and interactive language for deaf and hard of hearing children in their families and communities as well as in schools?

 

    • How do we involve deaf and hard of hearing students in determining what access they need? How do we ensure they continue to receive both academic and social-emotional support? 

 

    • What have we learned from our own deaf and hard of hearing children and students, especially about what works best for them? How have we supported their advocacy and self-determination? 

 

The Clerc Center is particularly interested in articles focused on serving students who are deaf or hard of hearing from traditionally underserved groups, including those students who are lower achieving academically, who come from families that speak a language other than English in the home, who are members of diverse racial or cultural groups, who are from rural areas, and/or who are deafdisabled.

Please e-mail your ideas to Odyssey@gallaudet.edu. We will begin accepting submissions on June 13, 2022, and continue until December 2, 2022, or until the magazine reaches capacity. Contact us at any time with questions or to discuss your ideas.

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A woman with dark, curly hair is reading a book to three deaf or hard of hearing boys. The two boys on the left are in Pre-kindergarten and the third boy is a toddler. The middle boy in a short-sleeve button up shirt is using American Sign Language with the woman reading.

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