vocabularyetiçudies

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A SUMMARY O F THE VOCABULARY RESEARCHW ITH STU D EN TS W H O A R E D EA F O RHARD OF HEARING

JOHN L. LUCKNER ANDCHRISTINE COOKE

B O T H A U T H O R S A R E A F F IL IA T E D W IT H T H EU N I V E R S I T Y O F N O R T H E R N C O L O R A D O ,G R E E L E Y . L U C K N E R I S A P R O F E S S O R A N DC O O K E I S A D O C T O R A L S T U D E N T I N T H ES C H O O L O F S P E C I A L E D U C A T IO N .

ocABuiARY is essential for com mu nicating, reading , thinking, an dlearning. In comparison to typical bearing peers, students who are deaor hard of bearing demonstrate vocabulary knowledge that is quantitatively reduce d. The authors review and sum marize research studiespublished in peer-reviewed journals between 1967 and 2008 focusinon vocabulary and s tuden ts wh o are deaf or hard of hearing. Forty-onstudies are examined. A summary of each study is presented in a tableand potential educational implications are described. The authors notethe paucity of research to guide instruction and provide suggestions fofuture research.Vocabulary has been defined as " thes t o r e h o u s e o f w o rd m e a n i n g s t h a t w edraw on to comprehend what i s s a idto u s , exp ress ou r though ts , o r in te r -pret what we read" (Mtiats . 2005. p . 7) .The dep th and b read th o f ind iv idua l s 'vocabulary is h ighly correlated witht h e i r o v e ra l l l a n g u a g e d e v e l o p m e n tand is a factor in their ability to uselanguage in varied contexts and formul t ip le pu rp oses (Mon tgomery , 2007;Richgels, 2004).

For the past 65 years , i t has been anes tab l i shed as sumpt ion tha t a s t rongcorrelat ion between vocabulary knowl-edge and read ing comprehe ns ion ex is ts(e.g . , Davis , 1944). Words encounteredin t ex t s a re mapped on to readers ' re -cep t ive vocabu la ry . How ever , wh enspecific words are not in an individualreader ' s vocabu la ry , the p r in ted wordsare not unders tood and i t is chal leng-

ing fo r the reader to make sense o f thepass age. As a resul t , i t is often not ed int h e li t e r a tu r e t h a t r e a d i n g c o m p re h e n -s ion is impeded i f individuals do notknow 90%-9S% of the to ta l words inthe text (Carver, 1994; Chali , Jac obs , &Baldwin, 1990; Na & Nation, 1985Nugy & Scott, 2000). Additionally, vo-c a b u l a ry c o n t r i b u t e s t o c o m p re h e n -s ion because i t p rov ides the bu i ld ingblocks for h igher-order th inking ski l lsInd iv idua l s who know more words o f -ten find it eas ie r to ma ke infere ncesand to in teg ra te in fo rmat ion in to co -h e re n t t h o u g h t s (S n c h a l , O u e l l e t t e& Rodney, 2006).

Severa l s tud ies have a l so demons t r a t e d t h a t c h i l d r e n ' s v o c a b u l a ryknowledge early in school influencest h e i r r e a d i n g c o m p re h e n s i o n s k i l l slater in l ife. For exa mp le. Tabors , Snowand Dick inson (2001) repo r ted tha

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receptive vocabulary knowledge inkindergarten was predictive of read-ing comprehension skills in the4th and 7th grades. Concomitantly,Cunningham and Stanovich (1997)found that receptive vocabulary in1st grade had a substantial relation-ship with reading com prehension in11th grade.How Do Chi ldrenLearn Vocabulary?Children learn vocabtilaiy indirectlyas well as directly (Armbruster, Lehr,& Osborn , 2003) . Mos t vocabularyk n o wl ed g e is acqui red indi rect lythrou gh dai ly interact ions with adults ,siblings, a n d peers that occur thrtnighconversat ions around routines, games,nursery rhymes, .songs, and readingactivities (Burns, Griffin, & Snow,1999; Landry & Smith, 2006). Morespecifically, children learn words indi-rect ly through conversat ional ex-changes with st)phist icated languageusers w ho pay close at tent ion to they o u n g ch i l d ' s co m m u n i ca t i o n at-t em p t s a n d w h o r e s p o n d to the childabout an object o r activity of interest .Simultaneously, t h e ski l led languageu s e r m o d e l s n e w vocabulary , ex-p a n d s o n t h e ch i l d ' s u t t e r an ces ,p r o m p t s t o k e e p t h e conversat iong o i n g , a n d r ep a i r s co n v er s a t i o nb r e a k d o w n s . As a resul t , as researchhas cons i s ten t ly demons t ra ted , a ma-ji)r factor explaining differences invocabulary size among young chi l-d ren is the quant i ty a n d quality ofl anguage input to which they haveb e e n e x p o s e d at h o m e d u r i n g th efirst few years of life (Hart & Risley,1995, 2003 ; H u t t en l o ch e r , H a i g h t ,Bryk, Seltzer, & Lyons, 1991; Rowe &G o l d i n -Mead o w, 2009 ; Wei z m an ikSnow, 20 01: Wells . 1986).

Individuals also learn many newwords indirect ly once they a re able toread independent ly Cunningham a n dStanovich (1998) estimated that fifth

graders w h o read for 20 minutes eachday read almost 2 million mt)re wordsper year than s tuden ts w h o cannot , ord o not , read . If 2% of the wo rd s a reunfamiliar to .students, then they willbe exposed to 40,000 new words eachyear (Anderson & Nagy, 1991). Equallyimportan t to n o t e is the fact that ex-p o s u re to new and unfamiliar wordsoccurs significantly more with the useof print media than in conversat ion o rwatching te lev i s ion . T h e e x p o s u r erates per 1,000 wo rd s are 68 for news-papers , 65 for magazines, 33 for comicb o o k s , and 31 for elementary chi l-d ren ' s b o o k s , as co m p ared to expo-sure rates per 1,000 wo rd s of 17 forconversat ions between friends and 2for viewing of television shows suchas Sesame Street (C u n n i n g h am &Stanovich, 1998). However, as notedabove, individuals need to have strongreceptive vocabularies in o r d e r to readindependent ly

Word learning is an incrementalprocess that begins at birth and con -t inues throughout l i fe. Research (e.g. ,Anglin, 1993; Biemiller, 2005, 2006;Biemiller & Slonim, 2001) sugges t sthat average hearing chi ldren acquirethe meaning of about 86 0 root wordsper year (e.g., desk, sleep, cotisin), orab o u t 2.4 root words pe r day for a to-tal of approximately 6 ,000 root wo rdsby the end of second grade. This o n-going process of learning root wordscombines wi th unders tanding and us -ing affixes in the lifelong quest to mas-te r t h e es t i m a t ed 4 5 0 , 000 -7 5 0 , 000words that make u p t h e English lan-guage (Stahl, 1999; Tompkins , 2005) .Simultaneously, humans" understand-in g of words goes through a s e q u e n c eof three stages. As sugges ted by Arm-b ru s t e r and col leagues (2003) . th ethree stages are :

1. Unknown: T h e w o r d i s com-pletely unfamiliar, and the m ean -in g is u n k n o wn .

2. Acquain ted : T h e wo rd is s o m e-what familiar; the individual hassome idea of its basic meaning.

3. Establ ished: T h e word is very fa-miliar; th e individual can i m m e-dia te ly recognize it s m ean i n gand use the word correct ly

Though mos t words are l earned in-direct ly, some vocabulary must b etaught direct ly Direct vocabulary in-struct ion helps s tudents learn high-frequency words that appear mos toften in texts, as well as difficult wt)rdsthat represent complex concepts thata re n o t part of their everyday experi-ences. Direct vocabulary instruct ionalso includes teaching students word-learning strategies, such as structuralanalysis (using morphological cluessuch as root words and affixes), phonicanalysis (using letter/sound correspon-d e n c e to pro nou nce unfamiliar wri t tenwords) , us ing context c lues to de-termine word meanings, and using dic-t ionar ies a n d i ) ther reference aids(Armbrus ter e t al., 2003).

Vocabulary demands fo r readingalso change over t ime. Words b eco meincreasingly abstract as s t u d e n t sprogr ess thro ugh scho ol (Minskoff,2005) . In the early grades, t h e major-ity of words that chi ldren learn a rebased on thei r exper iences and referto concrete concepts (people , p laces ,things). By the third o r fourth grade,s t u d en t s a re ex p ec t ed to read all thewo rd s in their oral vocabularies (M. F.Graves, Juel . & B. B. Graves, 1998).After fourth grade, th e wt)rds thats t u d en t s a re ex p ec t ed to read are ab-stract (e.g., linear, percerilt'/e, density,inertia) an d come from their text-b o o k s and classroom discussions intheir content-area classes (Minskoff,20 05 ). Finally, acquis ition of vocabularyfor succeeding in pos t secondaiy edu-cat ion, l iving independendy and un-ders tanding concepts of employabilityand employment (e .g . , arbitration,

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SUMMARY OF THE VOCABULARY RESEARCH

deductible, reimbursement) contin-ues throughout one's life (Fisher,Clark, & Patton, 2004).Vocabulary Knowledge ofStudents Who Are Deaf orHard of HearingThe literature consistently suggeststhat th e vocabulary knowledge of stu-dents who are deaf or hard of bearingis quantitatively reduced as compa redto that of typical hearing peers. Morespecifically, it has frequently been re-ported that students who are deaf orbard of bearing are delayed in theiracquisition of vocabulary knowledge,have smaller lexicons, acquire newwords at slower ra tes, and have a nar-rower range of contexts that result inword learning (Cole & Flexer, 2007;Easterbrooks & Estes, 2007; Leder-berg, 2003; Lederberg & Spencer,2001; Marschark & Wauters, 2008;Paul, 2009; Rose, McAnally & Quigley,2004; Schirmer, 2000; Trezek, Wang, &Paul, 2010).

In consideration of (a) the impor-tant role that vocabulary plays inlearning to read and becoming a flu-ent reader (August & Shanahan, 2006;National Reading Panel, 2000), (b) thechallenges that students who are deafor hard of hearing experience in l^e-coming skilled readers (Holden-Pitt &Diaz, 1998; Karchmer & Mitchell,2003; Qi & Mitchell, 2007; Traxler2000), and (c) the demand for evi-dence-based practices to guide in-struction (see the No Child LeftBehind Act of 2001, Pub. L, 107-11 0),the purpose of the present study wasto examine the research on vocabu-lary with students who are deaf orhard of hearing. Because there arefew examples in deaf education of ex-perimental research addressing teach-ing practices that have been testedand demonstrated as being effectivewith this population (see, e.g., Easter-

brooks & Steph enson , 2006; Luckner,Sebald, C ooney. Young, & Muir, 2005/2006; Schirmer, & McGough, 2005),we followed tbe recommendations ofValentine and Coop er (2004) and con-ducted a syntheses of the researchsummarizing the evidence, and cre-ated a summary that could be used bypractitioners, researchers, and admin-istrators in the field of deaf educ ation.MethodA two-step literature search strategywas used to identify pertinent stud-ies. First, we conducted computersearches in Sage, PsychlNFO, EbscoHost, ComDisDome-CSA, Wilson Web-Education Full Text, Google Scholar,and the website that allows forsearches in the journals of the Ameri-can S peech-language-H earing Associ-ation (ASHA). We used the literaturesearch terms deaf, deafness, hard ofhearing, hearng impaired, heatingimpairment, vocabi-ilary, and .se-mantics. Specifically, the terms deaf,deafness, hard of hearing, hearngimpaired, and hearing impairmentwere individually cross-referencedwith t^ocabulary and semantics. Sec-ond, the reference list of every iden-tified study was reviewed, and anystudies on vocabulary that werelisted were retrieved and reviewed.We did not include oth er sourcesof the literature (e,g.. DissertationAbstracts International, book chap-ters), conference presentations, orunpublished studies. To be includedin our analysis, a study had to meetfour criteria:

1, it was p ublished in a peer-reviewed journal between 1967and 2008,2, Participants were identified asstudents who were deaf or hardof hearing.3, It addressed vocabulary.

4, The sample consisted of children and youth between 3 anc21 years of age.

ResultsTable 1 provides a summ ary of the 4studies we reviewed. The table wadeveloped following the format usedby Luckner and Handley (2008). Specific information entered into thetable for each study included theauthor(s) and year of the publicationcontrol group information, type ostudy (i.e., designs described byCampbell & Stanley, 1963; M, D. GallJ. P Gall, & Borg, 2003; Huck, 2008)age range, gender and ethnicity of tbeparticipants, setting, communicationmodality, degree of hearing loss, intervention and duration, dep ende nt variable, summary, and implications othe study. A full citation of each studis presented in Appendix A, titled"Studies Reviewed Reference List," instandard American Psychological Association bibliographic format.

The m ajority of the stud ies (76%, n= 31) did not have an interventionOnly 10 studies (2496) were conducteto exam ine tb e effect a specific prcvgram, method, approach, or set of activities had on the vocabulary learningof a specific sample of students whowere deaf or hard of hearing. Additional inspection of the types of studies conducted indicates that manywere descriptive (34%, n 14); Thresearchers collected data in order toanswer a specific research question ohypothesis about a specific sample ostudents, Thirty-seven percent of tbstudies ( = 15) were causal-comparative: The researchers compared thoutcome or performance of at leastwo sample groups regarding aspectof vocabulary knowledge or learningFive (12%) of the studies were oneshot case studies, and 2 (5%) werpretest/posttest one-group design re

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search studies. Also undertaken were1 (2%) posttest-only control groupstudy; 1 (2%) correlational study; 1(2%) single-subject case study; 1 (2%)pretest/pcisttest, retest design study;and 1 (2%) within-student multiplebaseline study,Inspection of the interventionstudies indicates that only two inter-ventions had positive outcomes inmore than a single study. Those inter-ventions and the specific type of re-search designs used were (a) utilizinga computerized program to explicitlyteach vocabulary words (1 pretest/posttest retest study, 1 within-studentmultiple baseline study), and (b) uti-lizing aural/ oral habilitation in order

to enhance vocabulary skills follow-ing cochlear implantation (1 descrip-tive study, 1 single-subject casestudy). Five interventions demon-strated positive effects in a singlestudy. Those interventions and thespecific type of research design usedwere ]1. using Total Communicationmethods to improve vocabuiary(1 descriptive study),2. integrating words into an inten-sive daily vocabulary program (1pretest/posttest one-group de-sign study)3- providing early intervention af-ter identification of a hearingloss (1 descriptive study)4. using a tactile device to en-hance word learning (1 descrip-tive study)

In the fifth study, the researchers didnot provide a description of the inter-vention (1 one-group pretest/posttestdesign study).Foiiowing is a summary of the stud-ies pre sented in Table 1 in which simi-lar themes were identified in morethan a single study:

1. In 6 studies (4 descriptive stud-ies, 1 single-subject case study, 1causal-comparative study), theresearchers stated that earlierage of cochlear implantation huda positive effect on vocabulaiyacquisition and development.2. In 4 studies (3 descriptive stud-ies, 1 one-group pretest/posttestdesign study), the researchersreported a positive relationshipbetween vocabulary and readingcomprehension.3. In 4 studies (2 descriptive stud-ies, 1 single-subject case study,1 causal-comparative study),the researchers reported thatcochlear implants improved vo-

cabulary performance,4. In 4 studies (all causal-compara-tive studies), the researchersnoted that hearing students per-formed significantly better thanstudents with a hearing loss onvticabulary tasks.5. In 4 studies (3 descriptive stud-ies, 1 single-subject case study),the researchers indicated thatthe MacArthur-Bates Commu-nicative Development Invento-ries (CDI) was a valid measurefor assessing vocabulary skills.6. In 3 studies (2 descriptive stud-ies, 1 posttest-only controlgroup study), the researchersdiscussed the positive impact ofTotal Communication on vocab-ulary acquisition and develop-ment.7. In 2 studies (both causal-comparative studies), the re-

searchers recommended teach-ing semantic organization andsemantic concepts.8. In 2 stu dies (bo th causal-comparative studies"), the re-searchers recommended teach-ing frequently used Englishwords.

9. In 2 studies (bi)th one-grouppretest/posttest design stud-ies), the researchers recom-mended the use of intensivevocabulary instruction.10. In 2 studies (both one-shotcase studies), the researchers

suggested instruction in infer-ential strategies to assist vocab-ular>' developmen t,11. In 2 studies (both one-shotcase studies), the researchersrecommended the introduc-tion of key words using richand explicit examples.12. In 2 studies (both descriptivestudies), the researchers sug-gested teaching of novel woixls

to assist vocabulary acquisition.13. In 2 studies (both descriptivestudies), the researchers dis-cussed the importance of aminimum vocabulary in orderto use word-learning strategies.14. In 2 studies (1 causal-comparative study, 1 descrip-tive study), the researchersnoted that working mem ory af-fects vocabulary development.15. In 2 studies (1 causal-comparative study, 1 descrip-tive study), the researchersdiscussed how current level ofvocabulary knowledge affectsnovel word-learning skills,

DiscussionPeople use the words in their vocab-ulary to think, to express ideas andfeelings, and to learn about the world.Simultaneously, as Montgomery (2007)has noted, "vocabulary kn(.>wlcdge isamong the preeminent predictors ofsuccess in learning to read" (p. 1). Be-cause words play such an essentialrole in learning to read as well aslearning academic subjects, improv-ing students' vocabulary knowledgehas becom e an educational priority. In

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Table 1Summary of the Characteristics of the Reviewed Studies

SourceCooper, 1967

ControlgroupNo

Type ofstudy

Causal-comparative

Ag e(years-months)D8af =7.2-19.9;Hearing =7.2-18.1

Participants/gender

Deaf =140-11 1female/29 male;Hearing = 176-142female/34 male

Ethnicity(where conducted)

Not reported/New York City

SettingSchool for deafstudents/Neighboringparochial school

Comtnunicationmodality

Not reported

Griswold &Commings. 1974 No

Descriptive 1.9-4.6 1 9/N ot reported Not rep orted /Maryland Maryland Schoolfor the Deaf (MSD) TotalCommunication

Tweney, Hoemann, No& Andrews, 1975Study 1Causal- Deaf =comparative 16-18,Hearing16-18

Deaf = 63, Hearing Not reported/ Deaf = residential American Sign= 63 Kentucky school for students Language andwh o are deaf, spoken EnglishHearing = publichigh school

Tweney, Hoemann, No& Andrews, 1975Study 2Causal- Deaf =comparative 16-18,Hearing

Deaf = 63, H earing Not reported/ Deaf = residential American Sign= 63 Kentucky school for students Language andwh o aredeaf, spoken EnglishHearing = publichigh school

Walter, 1978 comparativeDeaf = 199, Hearing Notreported/= 277/not reported Hearing Detroit;

DeafacrossUnited States

Elementary school Not reporte

Brenza, Kricos, &Lasky, 1981 NoDescriptive 13.0-1 4.0 15/Not reported Not reported Mainstream schoolsetting Oral

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Degree ofhearing loss

Interventionand duration

Dependentvariabie Summary Implications

133 = profound. No intervention7 - severe A 48-item test of m orphologi-cal rules

Not reported No intervention M others kept track of knownand newly acquired vocabularywords in individual notebooksthroughout the preschoolprogram.

The researcher compared studentswho were deaf and students whowere hearing on their knowledge ofmorphological rules, speciticallyinflectional and derivational suffixes.Hearing students performed signifi-cantly better than deaf students. Theoldest group of deaf students did notperform as well as (he youngestgroup of hearing students. The scoreson the morphology test were highlycorrelated with reading and vocabu-lary test scores for both deaf andhearing participants.The researchers compiled a list of493 different words used in the chil-dren's expressive vocabulary. Of the493 words, 33% were used by onechild. Length of time in the preschoolprogram and use of Total Commun i-cation at home appeared to berelated to vocabulary development.

Students who are deaf maybenefit from instruction in therules ot English morphology.

Total Communication used Inan educational program a ndat home may have a positiveimpact on vocabularydevelopment.

i>evere-proiouna N O iniervennon

Severe-iDrofound No intervention= 63

Profound No intervention

index caras wttn au soundwords {e.g., bang. meow).30 common noun words (e.g.,kite, car), and 30 ink drawingscorresponding to the list ofnoun w ords. Participants wereasked to sort the words intocategories of similar meaning.using as many or as few cate-gories as desired.Index cards with 30 nounwords, 19 high-imagery words(e.g., cirde. magazine).19 low-imagery words (e.g.,idea. hope). Participants wereasked to sort the words intocategories of similar meaning,using as many or as few cate-gories as desired,Frequency-Bas ed Test ofVocabulary

performed similarly on the nounwords and the picture words andgreatly differed on the sound words.

Students who are deaf use se-mantic organization processessimilar to those of hearing stu-dents, except for differences inexperiences with sound words.

The deaf and hearing studentsperformed similarly in sorting thehigh-imagery, low-imagery, and nounwords.

Students who are deaf can or-ganize high-imagery words, aswell as low-imagery words, aswell as their hearing peers.

The researcher compared studentswho were deaf and students whowere hearing on their knowledge offrequently used English words, Hear-ing students performed significantlybetter than students with a hearingloss- The oldest group of deafstudents did not perform as well asthe youngest hearing students.

"HHjost of the students whowere deaf were not knowl-edgeable of many of themost frequently used Englishwords. Educators should notoverestimate students' vocab-ulary knowledge and shouldintegrate lexical instructionInto the language program.

Profound = 14.Moderate = 1 N o intervention T he B oehm Test of BasicConcepts (BTBC) was admin-istered to determine wordssBS

Eighty percent of the children with Children with a heanng losshearing loss scored below the 10th may demo nstrate difficultiespercentile. Sixty-seven percent of the with semantic concepts, which( Continued at the tap ofp. -45)

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Table 1 (continued)

Source

^dbb'ins & Hatcher,1981

Controlgroup

Type ofstudy

Posttest-onlycontrol group

Ag e(years-moriths,

9 -12 ./W=10.7

Participants/gender

36Not reported


Not reported/Iowa

Setting

Residential schoolfor deaf students

Comtnunicatiomodality

Total ^ ^ ^ " ^Communication

Howell, 1984 No Descriptive 3.7-4.1 4:2 males/ 2 females Not reported/Two participants Marylandhad hearing parents,and two had deafparents.

School and home Totalsettings Communication

Brooks. Frost,Mason, & Gibson.1987

No Descriptive 18 2/femal( Not reported/CanadaNot reported Participant 1 =fingerspelling

and signlanguageParticipanl 2 =moderately oral

LaSasso & Davey,1987 Descriptive 10-18,M = 1 5 . 95 0 no t re po rte d N ot r ep or te d R es id en tia l s ch oo l N o t r ep or te dfor deaf students

Strassman, NoKretschmer, & Bilsky,1987Study 1One-shotcase study 13.4-20.2,iW=17.6

22:14 female/8 male

Not reported/New Jersey Public scho olTotalCommunication

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Dependentvariable Summary Implications

Severe-profound= 36

Severe = 1,Profound = 2,Not reported = 1

Profound = 2

Profound = 50

meanings. Fifty concepts werepresented. Participants w erealso asked to use the words insentences. A total of 750 sen-tences were analyzed.Twenty-seven sentences ofvaried syntactic lorm and diffi-culty using the target vocabu-lary. Each sentence waspresented along with four pic-tures. Students were asked topick the picture that best repre-sented the meaning of the testsentence.

Half of the studentswere trained to rec-ognize and compre-hend the words usedin the study by usingflash cards and be-ing given signs forthe words, shownpictures of theobjects, and encour-aged to discuss thewords and picturesin conversation.The other half werenot taught the words.Total Comm unication MSD preschool vocabulary listclass three times aweek to focus on vo-cabulary w ords. Par-ticipants' mothersrecorded their child'svocabulary growth.

with 1,655 words. The mothersreported information to teach-ers during school and homevisits.

Thirty-minute trainingsessions using theQueens Universitytactile vocoder, a de-vice that allows theacoustic wave formto be feft as a vibra-tional pattern on theskin. Once a day. 4days per week, overa period of 3 months.Stimulus word testsfollowed 20 minutesof training.No Intervention

A list of 50 stimulus words.Initially, each participant wastested on a list of 3 wordswithin 50 random presenta-tions. Each word was pre-sented twice, and theresearcher gave immediatefeedback. More words wereadded to the list of presenta-tions once the participantachieved a score of 80%accuracy.

Vocabulary ComprehensionSubtest of the Gates-MacG initieReading Tests; Reading Com -prehension Subtest of theStanford Achievement Test(SAT); Cloze Reading Tasks;multiple-choice tasks for read-ing passages; free-responsetasks for reading passages.

Severe-profound No intervention Thirty-six pairs of sentenceswith each pair containing a tar-get sentence and a control sen-tence that required students to

children scored at or below the 1stpercentile. The researchers alsonoted that 4% of the sentences con-tained semantic errors, and 35% con-tained semantic and syntactic errors.There was no difference in sentencecomprehension between the group ofstudents who w ere trained in the vo-cabulary words and those studentswho received no training on the vo-cabulary words.

The children who participated in earlyintervention programs with their fami-lies showed significant improvementin vocabulary skills. Total Communica-tion was beneficial to all four childrenin developing vocabulary.

Both students reached a criterion of80% accuracy on the list of 50 stimu-lus words. Student 1 achieved thescore within 28,5 hours, and student2 accomplished 80 % within 24,0hours.

Regardless of specific reading com-prehension task used, vocabularyscores were highly predictive of read-ing comprehension performance.

may hinder their academicperformance. Teaching basicsemantic concepts may bebeneficial. The BTBC may be auseful assessment instrument.Training students on vocabu-lary words in isolation doesnot appear to have a positiveeffect. Instead, the authorssuggest that it is more appro-priate to teach vocabularywords in context. Also,difficulty with syntactic formshinders students' reading com -prehension. Syntactic knowl-edge should be a componentof reading instruction.

Total Comm unication m ay bean effective way to improvevocabulary developmentregardless of whether parentsare deaf or hearing.

Word learning may beenhanced by using a tactilevocoder

Vocabulary knowledge ishighly correlated with readingcomprehension performance.

Students were asked to make infer- Students made inferencesenees about a particular noun when when prompted to do so,general categorical information was rather than spontaneously,provided (e.g., "The man flew the Students who are deaf may( Cuntinued at be lofi (>/'/>. /?)

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Table 1 (continued)

SourceControl Type of Age Participants/ Ethnicitygroup study (years-months) gender (where conducted) Setting

Communicationmodality

Strassman.Kretschmer, & Bilsky,1987Study 2

No One-shotcase study13.4^20.2,M = 1 7 . 6

21:13 female/8 male Not reported/New Jersey Public school TotalCommunication

onway, uausai-comparative b.o-n.u &biMot reponea28youngerthan 9.028older than 9.0

rsioi reponea/NebraskaResidential schoolfor deaf studentsand in the publicschool se tting

Not repi

Paul & Gustafson,1991

No Causal-comparative Deaf =10.7-18.11,M =14.7 ;Hearing =8.11-10.11.Mean = 9.6

Deaf= 21 male/21 Not reportedfemale Hearing = 21male/21 female

bDeaf = residentialschool for studentswh o are deaf,Hearing = Publicelementary school

SimultaneousCommunication

de Villiers & No One-shotPomerantz, 1992 case studyStudy 1

12.10-18.7, 30/ Not reported Not reportedM-15.11

Oral school fordeaf students

Oral

de Villiers &Pomerantz, 1992Study 2No One-shotcase study O r a l -9.2-14.8M = 1 2 . 6

36 / Not reported Not reported 21 = oral school 21= oral, 15 =for deaf students, signed English15 Total Comm uni-

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Severe-profound No intervention

NO interventton

Profound = 42 No intervention

Profound = 26,Severe = 4 No intervention

Profound = 31Severe = 5 No intervention

Dependentvariable

infer what the noun phrase wasreferring to (e.g., "The shipmoved underneath the water"referred to a submarine).Ten sets of three sentencesthat included either a control, atarget, or an exemplar sentencewere shown to students for aperiod of 12 seconds. Then stu-dents were given a cued recalltest and instructed to read theword and w rite the sentence itmade them think of.

Summaryplane." students needed to indicatethat the man w as a pilot). Studentswere successful about 70% of thetime.Students demonstrated a poor rateof recall, only recalling about 27 % ofthe cues. They recalled exemplarsentences (e.g., "The bee stung thegirl") better than sentences thatrequired them to infer.

Implicationsbenefit from instruction andpractice inferring word me an-ings from context.

Students who are deaf or hardof hearing may benefit fromincreased attention to seman-tic representations and infer-ence strategy instruction.

Students were asked to tell theexaminer everything they knewabout 10 common nouns withpicture representations. Theexaminer used open-endedprompts(e.g., "Can you tell memore about ") to determinehow much the students knewabout the objects.

A 60-item picture vocabularytest to assess comprehensionof one or two meanings ofhigh-frequency multimeanlngwords.

A test booklet was developedthat assessed students'semantic knowledge andgrammatical knowledge of sixnouns, six verbs, and six ad-jectives. For each word, threecontexts were created thatvaried in how informative theywere of the unknown wordalean context. a rich contextand an explicit context.

A test booklet was developedthat assessed students'semantic knowledge and

The use of open-endedprompts that promote theunderstanding of semanticrelationships may lead to mul-tiple responses and to richer

All students were able to identify thecommon nouns. Open-ended promptshelped students produce moreresponses. The older group gavemore responses, yet the type andcomplexity of the responses were no word descriptions ,different than those of the youngergroup. In addition, both groups of stu-dents with a hearing loss produced re-sponses that w ere at a level similar tothat of younger hearing students.

Vocabulary instruction shouldinclude attention to frequentlyused multimeaning words(e.g., bat. call, change, sinii}.

Hearing students performed signifi-cantly better than deaf students. Forboth the deaf and the hearing groupsthere was a correlation between stu-dents' ability to select two meaningsof muitimeaning words and theirreading vocabulary and reading com-prehension levels.Students performed significantly bet-ter using the rich context (e.g.. "Theold house on the hill was an eerieplace. It was dark and it had brokenwindows, and it looked like ghostslived in it") and explicit context (e.g.."In the daytime the woods look safeand friendly, but at night they can bean eerie place. The trees look strangeand scary in the dark"), in contrast tothe lean context (e.g.. 'The boypainted a picture of an eerie house inhis art class. He took it home to showhis mother and father"). There was nodifference between the rich and theexplicit contexts. Reading compre-hension skills had a significant impacton students' ability to determine wordleanings using context.Students performed significantly better Sam e as Study 1.using the rich and explicit contexts incontrast to the lean context. There was

(Conlinued at the top ufp. 49)

Vocabulary instruction may bemore effective when educatorsintroduce key words usingmeaningful passages with richand explicit examples. Studentsmay benefit from being taughtstrategies for learning vocabu -lary from context.

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Table 1 (continued)

Source

Kidd. Mad sen, &Lamb, 1993

Controlgroup

No

Type ofstudy

One-shotcase study

Age(years-monthsjTotal Com -munication =10.11-15.4,

Not reported,grades 9-12

Participants/gender

25/Not reported


Not reported

Settingcation school fordeaf students

Residential schoolfor deaf students


Total ^ ^Communication

Dawson, Blamey,Dettman, Barker, &Clark. 1995No D esc rip tiv e N ot r ep orte d/age atimplantation= 2.6-19.9

32-16 males/16 femalesNot reported/Australia

Not reported Oral

Giibertson & Kamh!. No1995 Causal-comparative Normalhearing =5.1-9.7Hearing loss= 7.9-10.7

40-16 male/24 female 18AfricanAmerican22Not reportedNot reported

Kelly, 1996 No Correlational Not reported 21310 8 male/ Not reported Not reported105 female Oral communi-cation and TotalCommunication

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Dependentvariable Summary implications

Not reported No intervention

grammatical knowledge of sixnouns, six verbs, and six ad-jectives. For each word, threecontexts were created thatvaried in how informativethey were about the unknownworda lean context, a richcontext and an explicit context.

Fifty-item multiple-choice testfocusing on seventh- andeighth-grade mathematicsvocabulary (e.g., square, multi-plier, sine, how many more).

no difference between the rich and ex-plicit contexts- Middle school studentsdid not perform as well as the upperschool students reported in Study 1.No significant differences existed be-tween students who used oral Englishor Signed English. Reading compre-hension skills had a significant impacton students' ability to determine wordmeanings using context.

Even though students were enrolledin high school level (grades 9-12)mathematics classes, the mean per-centage of seventh- and eighth-grade mathematics words identifiedcorrectly was 46%.

Profound One and a half (1.5)hours of individualspeech and lan-guage habilitationwere provided atregular intervals, inaddition to the stan-dard educationalservices providedbefore the preopera-tive period and afterthe postoperativeperiod.

Peabody Picture VocabularyTest-Ill (PPVT-III). Skills wereassessed before implantation,at 6 months after implan-tation, 36 months afterimplantation, and 42 monthsafter implantation.

The mean performance of postopera-tive scores on the assessment wassignificantly higher than the meanpreoperative performance scores. Ailof the participants showed vocabularyscores below expected chronologicalages; however, the postoperativescores indicated an increased rate ofvocabulary acquisition and improve-ment over time.

The authors suggest theweaknesses in mathematicalvocabulary may causestudents to not understandwhat they read about in math-ematics. More emphasis onmathematical vocabulary isrecommended. The authorssuggest that mathematicsterms should be introduced byteaching the written word andthe symbol, providing exam-ples, and involving students inconceptually based activities.Vocabulary acquisition andpertormance may improveafter cochlear implantationand speech and languagehabilitation.

Normal hearing= 20 Mild tomoderate = 20

l o Intervention LexcTacquisition and reten-tion tasks: Series of four novelwords (e.g.. tam, jaften) weretaught in random order as partof a four-stage word-learningparadigm: (1 ) exposure(2) comprehension (3) produc-tion (4) recognition

Not reported No intervention Reading Vocabulary subtestof the California AchievementTest, the Test of SyntacticAbilities, Reading Comprehen-sion subtest of the Stanford

Ten children with a hearing loss per-formed just as well as the childrenwith normal hearing. The other 10children with a hearing lossperformed at a lower level on novel-word learning tasks than the 10 chil-dren with a hearing loss who vt/ereseen as higher-functioning children.The students who performed best onthe novel-word learning tasks alsoperformed well on the PPVT-R and ontwo phonological processing tasks.Vocabulary knowledge and syntaxknowledge were each highly corre-lated with reading comprehension-

The degree of hearing lossmay not be a predictor ofvocabulary development.

Vocabulary knowledge is posi-tively influenced by syntacticknowledge, which in turn influ-ences reading comprehension.The development ot syntactic

(Continued at t h e t o p afp. 51)

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Table 1 (continued)

SourceControl Type of Age Participants/ Ethnicitygroup study (years-months) gen der (where conducted) Setting


Willis & Edwards, No1996

Single-subject 4,3case study

1female Not reported Not reported Oral

Connor, Hiebor,Arts. & Zwolan,2000No Causal-comparative

Not reported

Lederberg,Prezbindowski, &Spencer. 2000Study 1

No Descriptive 3.2-6,10,

14771 m ales/76females Participantswere divided into3 groups based onthe age of cochlearimplantation:1) before 5,02) 5.0-6,93 )7 -10 , 0

1911 female/8 male

Not reported/Michigan, Ohio,and IndianaA variety ofsettings includingself-contained,mainstreamed. in-clusive, and homeschool.

Oral communioa-tion (OC)Total Communi-cation (TC)

12 Cauca sian, State day school ASL signs in4 Hispanic, 3 African for deaf/hard of English wordAmerican hearing students order

Lederberg,Prezbindowski. &Spencer, 2000 -Study 2

No Descriptive Notr e p o r t e d -subset ofgroup fromStudy 1

7 4 fem ale/3 m ale Not reported State day schoolfor deaf/hard ofhearing studentsASL signs inEnglish wordorder

Moeller, 2000 No Descriptive 5 11258 males/54 females Not reported/NebraskaCenter for Child-hood Deafness

51 -TotalCommunication

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Profound The participant re-ceived 20 sessionsof oral/aural habili-tation at 1.0-1.5hours per session.The sessions tookplace over 1 yearpost-cochlear im-plantation at 3.3yrs. The sessionsfocused on spokenlanguage in mean-ingful situations.Severe-profound No intervention

Achievement TestH earingImpaired Edition

MacArttiur-Bates Communica-tive Development Inventories(CDI), including the followingportions: Words and Gestures,and Words and Sentences. TheBritish Picture Vocabulary Scale(BPVS) was also administered.

The Peabody Picture Vocabu-lary Test-Revised/lll was usedto measure receptive vocabu-lary skills, and the WoodcockJohnson Tests of C ognitiveAbility was used to evaluateexpressive vocabulary ability.

Profound = 7Severe = 8Moderate toSevere = 4

N o In te rv en tio n N ovel w ord s. M ac Arth urComm unication DevelopmentInventory (CDI)words andsentences version. Gram-matical Analysis of ElicitedLanguage-Pre-Sentence Level(GAEL-P),

The scores obtained on the CDI indi-cated growth in expressive and recep-tive vocabulary s kills. However, thechild did not show progress in recep-tive vocabulary on the BPV S.

competence should beaddressed in reading programsfor students who are deaf orhard of hearing.intensive oral/aural habilitationmay lead to increased recep-tive and expressive vocabularyfollowing cochlear Implantation.

N ot rep orted No inten/ention Same as Study 1

The researchers compared the per-formance of the TC and OC groups.The groups were matched accordingto the age of implantation. All of thechildren (TC and OC) who receivedcochlear implants prior to age 5years or during their preschool yearsachieved better vocabulary outcomesover time than children who receivedtheir implants during their elementaryschool years.

3mhildren may benefit fromusing cochlear implantsregardless of the communica-tion strategy or teachingapproach used. Age of implan-tation may be the most impor-tant factor.

Children demonstrated three differentlevels of word learning. Some learnedwords quickly in novel mapping andexplicit reference contexts: othersdemonstrated rapid word learningonly when reference was explicitlyestablished by an adult; others werenot capable of word learning in eithercontext. Also, word-learning abilitieswere related to children's vocabularyThe teacher-completed CDI was avalid measure of children's vocabulary^development.

Children's ability to learnwords in novel mapping andexplicit reference contexts isrelated to their vocabulary de-velopment. Children need aminimum of approximately200 words before being ableto apply the strategies. Use ofword-learning strategies arebased on children's repeatedexperiences with the exposureto novel words used in theirenvironment.

Children who did not pass the novel Sam e as Study 1mapping or rapid word learningassessments in Study 1wereretested over an 18-month period tosee when they acquired the skills. Allchildren eventually passed the novel-word learning and rapid word learningassessments. The acquisition of theseskills was related to their rate ofvocabulary development.

9 = Mild17 = Mild tomoderateAll of the childrenparticipated in theDiagnostic Early

Peabody Picture VocabularyTest-lll (PPVT-III) The children who were enrolled in the The child's age at the time ofearly intervention program prior to 11 enrollment In an early interven-months of age demonstrated stronger tion program and the level of( (".iiiiinctl tl! /he !()p of p . xi)

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Table 1 (continued)

Source

Barker, ^}03

Controlgroup

No

Type ofstudy

Pretest,posttest,retest

Age Participants/(years-months) gender

8-14. 1 9- 9 male/10M=11.1 female


Not reported/Oregon

Setting

Day school fordeaf students

Communicat ionmodality

61 = oralcommunicationdJra l

Connor &Zwolan ,2004

No D escrip tive Not re po rte d 9 1 45 m ale /M = 1 1 46 female86=Caucasian,2=African A merican,3=0ther ethnicities/Michigan

Medical centerand public school

43 =:: TotalCommunication48 = oralcommunication

Fagan, Pisoni, Horn,& Dillon, 2007 NoDescriptive 6-1 4, 2616 male/ Not reported Mainstream school Spoken EnglishM = 9.1 10 female setting

Hansson. Forsberg,Lofqvist, M aki-Torkko,&Sahlen,2004No Causal-comparative Deaf/Hardof Hearing(DHH) =

DHH = 18 /not reported SLI =21/not reported

Not reported/Sweden University clinicand school fordeaf studentsOral

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Degree ofhearing toss

19= Moderate20 = Severe47 = Profound

Profound = 16,Hearing = 3

Profound

Profound ^ 26

Mild = 13Moderate = 5


Intervention Program(DEIP)fora t least6months after beingidentified with ahearing loss. Theintervention included1-2 weekly homevisits an d a parentsupport group.

Vocabulary tutordisplaying line draw-ings or photographsof words (nouns).while a computer-generated avatarprovided synthesizedaudiovisual speechprinted words corre-sponding to the im-ages were presentedto students. Youngerstudents = 2,5 hourstotal; older students= 3.5 hours total.No intervention

Dependentvariabie

Identification of words includedin the training lessons.

Preimplant measures =Picture Vocabulary Test of theWoodcock-Johnson Test ofCognitive Ability and theExpressive One-Word PictureVocabulary Test. Post-implantmeasures = Picture VocabularyTest of the Woodcock-JohnsonTest of Cognitive Ability.

No in te rv en tio n P ea bo dy Pic tu re V oca bu la ryTest-Ill (PPVT-III)

Summaryvocatxilary skills at 5 years of agethan children who began early inter-vention after 11 months of a ge. Familyinvolvement made a positive impacton the child's vocabu lary skills-

Students could correctly identify sig-nificantly more words at the end ofeach lesson than they could identifyat the beginning of the lesson. Mostof the students retained more thanhalf of the new words they weretaught when retested 4 weeks afterthe intervention.

Preimplant and postimplant vocabularyskills affected reading co mprehensionscores. Children who were younger atthe time ol implantation tended to dis-play higher postimplant vocabularyscores. The children who used TotalCommunication prior to receiving acochlear implant showed strongervocabulary skills after receiving theimplant, when their scores w ere com-pared to the scores of the children whoused oral communication.A comparison ot the scores on thePPVT-III for the participants was b e-low the standard score for hearingchildren. Greater than half of the par-ticipants scored more than one stan-dard deviation below the mean forhearing ch ildren. PPVT- III scoreswere highly correlated with readingtest scores. Children who wereimplanted before a mean age of 2.5years scored significantly better onboth the vocabulary and reading testscompared to part icipants who wereimplanted after 2,5 years of age.

NO iniervennon iMovei nouns cPiiiafrwith hearing loss performeabetter than children with SLI on anovel-word learning task.

Impiicationsfamily involvement maypositively affect the vocabularydevelopment of children with ahearing loss. Early interventionprograms may be effective inpromoting vocabulary develop-ment when children and theirfamilies are enro lled at youngerages (i.e.. before the ch ildreaches age 11 months) andwhen families are involved. The vocabulary tutor may be auseful way to help studentsidentify bas ic nouns.

Children who use TotalCommunication and receive acochlear implant at an earlierage may have stronger vocat>-ulary skills than children whouse oral communication andwho get a cochlear implant ata later age.

Vocabulary and readingcomprehension are highlycorrelated. Students who wereimplanted prior to the age of2.5 years performed significantlybetter on tests of vocabularyand reading comprehensionthan students implanted after2.5 years of age.

Working memory ski l ls shouldbe assessed and included whennovel words are being taught.

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SUMMARY OF THE VOCABULARY RESEARCHTable 1 (continued)

Source

Massaro S Light,2004

Controlgroup

No

Type ofstudy

Wtthin-studentmultiplebaseline

Ag e(years-months)9.1-13.3SpecificLanguageImpaired(SLI) =8.6-11.46.11-11.0

Participants/gender

82 male/6 female

Etiintaty(where conducted)

Not reported/California

Setting

Day schoo l fordeaf students


Oral

Stelmachowicz,Ptttman, Hoover, &Lewis. 2004

No Causal - Deaf/Hard of Deaf/Hard of Not reported Not reported Oralcomparative Hearing 6. Hearing = 1159-9 .11 , M = feme/6 mate,7.7 , Hearing Hearing = 2010= 6.3-9 .10. female/10 maleM =7.9

Singleton, Morgan,DiGello. Wiles, &Rivers, 2004

No Causal-comparative

Deaf = grades1-6, Hearing= grades 1-5,ESL = grades1-5

Deaf = 72/notreported, Hearing =61/not reported.ESL = 60/notreported

Not reported Residential schoolfor deal students.self-containedclassrooms, publicelementary school

American SignLanguage andspoken English

Willstedt-Svensson,Lofqvist, Almqvist, &Sahlen, 2004No Descriptive 5.4-11.5 15 / 9 g ir ls , 6 boys Swedfsh/Sw eden Lun d U niversityHospital 6 = signlanguage4=o ral language

5-sign and orallanguage

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Profound = 2Severe = 3Moderatelysevere = 1f^oderate = 1Mild = 1


Language Wizard/Player with Ba ldi. acomputer-animatedtutor for teachingvocabulary/20-30minutes a day, 2days a w eek, for10 weeks.

Dependentvariable Summary

Set of vocabulary words. Every student demonstrated signifi-cantly positive gains in both identifica-tion and production of wordsintroduced.

implications

The Language Wizard/ Playerwith Baldi may be an efficientprogram of direct instruction ofcategories of vocabulary.-

Mild = 1,Moderate ^ 4,Moderatelysevere = 5.Severe = 1

No intervention Peabody Picture VocabularyTest-Ill {PPV T-III), 40 trials of5 repetitions of 8 novel wordspresented in a four-alternativeforced-choice format.

N ot reported N o intervention

Not reported No intervention

American Sign LanguageProficiency Assessment, totalwords, frequent words, uniquewords, and function wordswritten.

Participants viewed a 4-minuteanimated slide show containing eightnovel words. The slide show was nar-rated by an adult m ale. Half of thewords were presented at 50dB SPL,and the other half were presented at60dB SPL. Half of the novel wordswere nouns and half were verbs.Hearing students performedsignificantly better than the studentswith a hearing loss, retaining almosttwice as many words. PPVT scoreswere highly predictive of novel-wordlearning scores.I

The deaf students were divided into3 groupslow, m oderate, and highASL proficiency Two additionalgroupsone hearing m onolingualand one hearing ESL groupwereincluded for comparison purposes.Participants watched a 3-minute silentvideo of "The Tortoise and the Hare"and were asked to retell the story inwritten English, The three deaf groupswrote fewer words than the two hear-ing groups. Th e high- and m oderate-proficiency ASL groups used thesame percentage of frequently usedwords and unique words as themonolingual hearing group and per-formed better on both measures thanthe ESL group or the low ASL group.The monolingual hearing and ESLgroups used significantly more func-tion words (e,g.. an, the, at, from)tf ^n all three ASL groups.

A student's ability to learnnew words is influenced bythe amount of words that thestudent currently knows andby the amount of exposuresto the word that the studentexperiences.

The m oderate and high ASLgroups used m ore diversevocabulary than the low A SLgroup and the ESL group. Yetthey produced shorter storiesand used less function wordsthan either hearing group. Theauthors suggest that ASL profi-ciency may offer an entry pointinto the learning and use ofEnglish vocabulary. Instructionin English function wordsshould be addressed.

Verbal complex WorRffigory tasks, and novel-wordlearning test in 5 parts: expo-sure, comprehension, produc-tion, recognition, and retention.

^niBresercne rs ound^nanfe ag Tcochlear implantation correlated withperformance on the novel-word learn-ing tests. Complex working-memorytasks also correlated with novel-word

Age ot cocniear implantaFonmay affect novel-word learn-ing ability. Limitations in work-ing memory may also affectnovel-word learning skills;


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Table 1 (continued)

SourceControl Type of Age Participants/ Ethnicitygroup study (years-months) gende r (where conducted) Setting


Pittman, Lewis,Hoover. &Stelmachowicz,2005

No Causal-comparative Deaf/Hardof Hearing =5-14,M =9.4 .Hearing =5-13,M =9 . 3

Deaf/Hard ofHearing = 37/notreported. Hearing =60/not reported

Not reported Not reported Oral

Connor, Craig, NoRaudenbush,Heavner, & Zwolan,2006

Thai, DesJardin, & NoEisenberg. 2007

Descriptive Not reported

Descriptive 32 mo nths-86 months.M =56.7months

100not reported/21=GroupA1 (1-2.5yrs at CochlearImplantation (CI))15=GroupA2(2.6-3.5 yrs at CI)20=Group B {3.6-7yrs at Ci) 44=GroupC (7 .1-10 yrs at CI)

24-13 males/11females

^ ^Not reported

Not reported/Los Angeles

Not reported Oral

House Ear OralInstitute CARE ,Center I1

James. Rajput, NoBrinton. & Goswami,2008

Paatsch, Blamey. NoSarant, & Bow, 2006

Causal- 5.9-10.6comparative

PretesV 5.9-12.2posttest,one-groupdesign

1911 male/8female9 w ere fitted with acochlear implant (CI)between 2 and 3.6yrs; 10 were fittedwith a CI between5 and 7 yrs219 male/12 female

Not reported/England

Not reported/Australia

School and homesettings

Mainstreamschool with aprogram for deafstudents

11 = Oral8 = TotalCommunication

Ora ^ ^ ^ H^ 1

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learning. The results also corroborated therefore, memory sho uld bewith previous studies that noted that assess ed.early implantation is important for lan-guage development.

Mild tomoderatelysevere

N o in te rv en tio n P eabody P icture V oca bula ryTes t-lll (PPV T-III), 80 trials of10 repetitions of 8 novel wordspresented on a touch-screenmonitor.

Profound No intervention Peabody Picture VocabularyTest-lll (PPVT-III)

Students viewed a 4-minute animatedstory read by a female speaker thatincluded eight novel words paired withpictures of uncommon toys, repeatedon three different occasions within thestory. Hearing children significantlyoutperformed the children w ith ahearing loss on the n ovel-word learn-ing tasks. Deaf and hard of hearingparticipants also did not perform aswell on the PPVT-ll! as their he aringpeers. Novel-word learning scoreswere highly correlated with scores onthe PPVT-III.The children in Group Al whoreceived their cochiear implantsbetween 1.0-2.5 years of ageshowed greater rates of vocabularygrowth. The earlier the child receiveda cochiear implant, the better his orher rate of vocabulary growth. Therewas no significant difference in therate of vocabulary growth after theimplantation age of 4 years.

The ability to learn novel wordsrapidly is related to students'current level of vocabulary.Students with larger vocabular-ies learn words more easily.

Early cochiear implantation(before the age of 2.5 years)may lead to a burst of vocab-ulary growth immediately fol-lowing implanta tion. Earlycochiear implantation maylead to better speech and vo-cabulary outcomes over time.

Mild-tnoaeraie N O iniervemton

Profound = 19 No intervention

MacArmur-ates uommuntca-tive Development Inventories(CDI) were completed prior tothe administration of theReynell DevelopmentalLanguage Scales (RDLS)

The British Picture VocabularyScale (BPVS)

ine researchers suggest that the CDIis a valid tool for documenting anddescribing language developmentalmilestones in children with cochiearimplants. It is also a good measure-ment too! for monitoring and describ-ing the child's strengths andweaknesses.Children who were fitted with a CI atan earlier age performed better on thereceptive vocabulary assessment.Several children who were fitted ata later age also ma de progress inreceptive vocabulary over the courseof the study.

The COI m ay be bene ficial (orprofessionals in clinical andschool settings w ho work w ithchildren who have cochiearimplants. The CDI may reflectnatural language and vocabu-lary development more thanrmal assessments.Children who are fitted with acochiear implant at an e arlierage may perform better onvocabulary tests than childrenwho a re fitted at a later age.

Mitd=1Moderate=1Severe=3Profound=16

Seventy of 109 wordswere integrated into acurriculum for a 15-week period. Teach-ers taught wordsusing oral discussionof word meanings,pictorial representa-tions of the words,words in sentences

109 monosyllabic CVC words(e.g., had, keep, doll, bed).

Students demon strated significant im-provement after vocabulary training. Intensive daily vocabularyteaching that includes discus-sion of word meanings, picturerepresentations of words, andconstructing sentences thatillustrate a w ord's correct se-mantic and syntactic use maybe effective in vocabularytraining.

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Table 1 (continued)

SourceControl Type of Age Participants/group study (years-months) gender

Ethnicity(where conducted) Sett ing

Communicationmodaiity

Pittman, 2008 Causa)- 8,1-10,7,comparative M = 9.3 147 female/7 maleNot reported Not reported Oral

Schorr, Roth, & Fox,2008

No Causal-comparative5,4-14.11 5639-deaf /19males/20 females37=normalhearing/19 males/18 females

Not reported/Maryland

University clinic Oral

Easterbrooks, NoLederberg, Miller,Bergeron. & Connor.2008

Pretest- 2.11-6.11,posttest M = 5.2 44/ Not reportedone-groupdesign

Not reported/Notreported

Self-containedpreschool, kinder-garten, a nd first-grade classrooms.public school dis-tricts, oral privateschool, day schoolfor deaf students

Oral, TotalCommunication.bilingualAotalCommunication

recognition of the critical role of vo-cabulary in educational outcomes, weundertook the present study to iden-tify, collect, and review the researchpublished in peer-reviewed journalsrelated to vocabulary and school-agestudents who are deaf or hard ofhearing. Our findings suggest that inth e 41- year period 1967-2008, a totalof 41 studies of any type (single-sub-

ject, case study, descriptive, causal-compa rative, quasi-experimental, ex-perimental) were completed andpublished. Ten of the 41 publishedstudies included an intervention.Potential limitations of the presentstudy need to b e noted. First, althoughwe attempted to undertake an exhaus-tive review of the literature, it is possi-ble that pertinent studies were not

included because the search terms weused were not sufficient. Second, astudy may have been conducted thatfocused on reading in which vocabu-lary was a component of the studyeven though this was not reflected inthe title. Third, we did not include dis-sertation studies, unpublished studies,studies reported in b


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Degree ofhearing ioss



Profound = 1Severe = 3Moderatelysevere = 4Moderate = 3Mild = 3

and in discourse,and in school andhomework-basedactivities.No intervention Nonsense words paired withnovel pictures The researcher compared a group ofnormally hearing students with agroup of students with a hearingtoss on learning novel words in twoconditionslimited and extendedbandwidth. Both groups performedbetter in the extended bandwidthcondition (i.e.. high-frequency amplifi-cation). The students with a hearingloss required approximately twice thenumber of exposures to learn newwords in comparison to the hearing

N ot reported N o intervention

Range = 58-110dB. M =94.3 dB Intervention was notdescribed.

The Peabody Picture Vocabu-lary Test-lll and the ExpressiveVocabulary Test assessed re-ceptive and expressive vocab-ulary skills.

Woodcock-JohnsonAchievement Te st-IllPicture Vocabulary

The researchers compared thevocabulary skills of children withcochlear implants (CI) and childrenwith normal hearing (NH). Thirty-sixpercent of the children with CI and92% of the children with N H had age-appropriate skills.rThe researchers assessed thestudents in the fall and again in thespring on a variety of measures(e.g.. Speech Perception, Phonologi-cal Awareness. Alphabetics, Vocabu-lary, and E arly Reading Skills). Scoressignificantly increased across the yearon all tests except vocabulary a ndrhyming. A large portion of studentsscored below the normal range onthe vocabulary test. Scores on vocab-ulary and phonological awarenesspredicted performance on two meas-ures of early literacy: letter-word iden-tification and passagecomprehension.

Students with hearing losshave significantly smallervocabularies than hearingpeers and require more expo-sures in order to learn newwords- Speech signals with ex-tended high-frequency amplifi-cation (i.e., similar to norm alhearing) permitted students tolearn words faster. Hearingaids with frequency transposi-tion may improve speech per-ception and word learning.Children with cochlearimplants may demonstratetower scores on vocabutarymeasures than children withnormat hearing.

The authors note that typicalhearing children acquire alarge portion of their vocabu-lary incidentally, which often isnot the case for children whoare deaf or hard of hearing. Asa result, most children who aredeaf or hard of hearing requireexplicit instruction to improvetheir vocabulary performance.

1

proceedings. Fourth, we did not exam-ine che research undertaken with chil-dren who are deaf or hard of hearingages birtii-3 years, which is a criticaltime period for vocabulary develop-ment. A study summarizing the re-seaa'h with that age group would be apositive supplement to this work.Fifth, reading, summa rizing, determ in-ing implications for each study, and de-

veloping Table 1 was an in terpre tiveprocess. It is possible that other indi-viduals using similar procedures mayhave reported each study as well assummarized the corpus of studies dif-ferently Each of these factors shouldbe taken into consideration in any ef-fort to genemlize the results presentedin this article.

Review of the results supported as-

sertions made previously aboui tlicshortage of research to establish evi-dence-based practices in the field ofdeaf education (e.g., Luckner, 2006;Paul, 2009; Schirmer, & McGough,2005). Only 24% of the studies we re-viewed were undertaken to examinewhether a specific intervention wouldimprove the vocabulary learning ofstuden ts who are deaf or hard of hear-

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ing . Th i s i s equ iva len t to app ro x i -mately one s tudy every 2 years . Also ,examina t ion o f the in te rven t ion s tud -ies sugges te d tha t th ere has been alack of systematic inquiry. Specifically,we did not see any s tudies with posi-t ive in te r ven t ions be ing rep l i ca tedwith ei ther d ifferent samples , in o therset t ings , or by d ifferent resea rcher s .Fu r thermore , the ex ten t o f ev idencefo r the in te rven t ions tha t demon-s t ra ted pos i t ive ou tcomes wou ld beconsidered small us ing the s tandardses tab l i shed by the U,S . Depar tmen tof Educat ion Inst i tu te of Educat ionSciences (2008) or as a " tentat iveevidence-based pract ice" (e .g , , Thomp-son, Diamond, McWilliam, P Snyder, &S, W Snyder, 2005). Finally, no studiesa d h e re d t o t h e r e c o m m e n d a t i o n s o fth e Am erican P sychological Associa-tion (2001) and reported effect size ors trength of relat ionships , which wouldhave indicated the m agn itude of the ef-fect or relationship. Rather, all of thestudies simply reported statistical sig-nificance. Given the imponance of vo-cabulary for in teract ing , reading, andthinking, repl icat ion and increased at-tent ion to th is topic needs to occur inthe fu ture. We addr ess suggest ions forpotent ial research topics later in thepresent art icle .

Th i r t een s tud ies e i ther d i rec t ly o rind i rec t ly had imp l ica t ions fo r thequant i ty and qual i ty of in teract ionswi th o thers . Whether the in te rac t ionswere enhanced by the u se o f coch learimp lan t s . To ta l Communica t ion , hear -ing a id s wi th enhan ced bandw id th , o rtact i le s t imulat ion , the essent ial ro leof conversat ion in the learning of vo-cabu la ry i s no tew or thy (Arm brus te ret al . , 2003). Conversat ions provide anavenue fo r words to be repea ted mu l -t ip le t imes in context and for new andinteres t ing words to be pre.sented , apro ce ss that is difficult to re plica teth roug h the u se o f a s t ruc tu red l an -g u a g e p ro g ra m .

Multiple studies found a relation-ship between vcKabulaiy knowledgeand read ing comprehens ion . As no tedpreviously, the existence of this rela-t ionsh ip is a t ime-honored as sumpt ionand a consis tent research finding in th egeneral field of literacy (e.g,, Becker,1977; Cunn ingha m & Stanovich, 1998:Snow, 2002). Additionally, several stud-ies reported that hearing s tudents hadsignificantly larger vocabularies thanthe compara t ive sample o f s tuden t swho were deaf or hard of hearing. Thisdispari ty in word knowledge has beenreported in the l i terature for decades(e.g ., Moores , 1978).

As w e have already no ted, two in-te rven t ion s tud ies repo r ted pos i t iveresul ts from using computers for vo-cabu la ry in s t ruc t ion . The Nat iona lReading Panel (2000) noted s imilarlypromising findings in the area of vo-cabu la ry and compu ter -based in s t ruc-t ion wi th hear ing s tuden t s . Bosse le rand Massaro (2003) also found posi-t ive resul ts with chi ldren with aut ism,as d id Dubois and Vial , (2000) withs tude n t s l ea rn ing a sec ond l anguage ,and G, Joh nso n . Gers ten , and C arn ine(1987) with h igh school s tudents witha learning disability.

A d v a n t a g e s o f u s i n g c o m p u t e r -con t ro l l ed app l ica t ions fo r vocabu-lary t rain ing include (a) less d irectt eacher t ime than t eacher- l ed in s t ruc-t i o n , ( b ) t h e a m o u n t o f a u t o m a t e dpract ice i t makes possib le, (c) the po-ten t i a l to ind iv idua l i ze in s t ruc t ion ,(d) the provis ion of immediate feed-back , (e ) imbedded in s t ruc t iona l de-s ign fea tu res such as sys temat icreview and ins truct ional scaffolding,and ( 0 mult ip le sourc es of informationsuch as images , t ex t , and sound tha tfacil i tate learning and im prov e rete n-t ion of the target vocabulary (Bosseler& Massaro , 2003; Carn ine , S i lber t ,Kam e'enui , & Tarver, 2004). Many com -mercial programs are available that al-low profess ionals to create crossword

p u z z l e s , p ro d u c e w o rd g a m e s , a n dmake semantic maps. Vocabulary Uni-versity (wTvw,syndicate,com) is a web-s i t e wi th g rade- leve l puzz les , wordgames, and word act iv i t ies . Word Play(httpy/vAvw.flin-with-worcls.com/word.htm ) is a we bsite that links to m anyother sites featuring fun activities withw o rd s . Ex a m p l e s of c o m m e rc i a l c o m -p u t e r p ro g ra m s w i t h a v o c a b u l a ryfocus are Words Rock, by FdAlive(k i n d e rg a r t e n t o n i n t h g r a d e ) , a n dWord Adven tu re 2K1 , by WordSm ar t(k i n d e rg a r t e n t o s e c o n d g r a d e ) .

The MacArthur-Bates Ct)mmunica-t ive Dev e lopm en t Inven to r ies (CDI)was repo r ted to be a va l id measu re toassess vocabulary skills in several stud-ies. This is valuable inform ation forhome in tervent ionis ts , early in terven-t ion p ro fess iona l s , and researcherswho wan t to conduc t as sessmen ts o fyoung chi ldren with a hearing loss . Inaddi t ion , femily members and profes-s ionals can use the word frequencyprog ram and the accompany ing age-range informatit)n available on the au-thors ' web s i te (h t tp : /Avww.sci .sdsu,edu/cdi/) to identify specific gestureswords , and sentences to priori t ize aslanguage targets . This information isavailable in both English and Spanish.

As Ow ens (2009) has explain ed, "Ati t s co re , word mean ing cons i s t s o fconcep t s o r knowledge o f the wor ld .Words d o not nam e th ings , but ratherre fe r to these concep t s . The ,se con -cep tua l complex es a re fo rmed f rommany experiences with the actual ref-e ren t s o r wi th conversa t iona l o r l i t e r -a ry u se o f the words" (p . 299) . Alsopeop le l ink words in the i r minds se -mantical iy in several ways, such asw o rd s t h a t f r e q u e n t l y g o t o g e t h e r(e.g . , hread a n d butter), ca tego r ies(e .g ., spo r t s , t rans po r ta t ion ) , w ho lea n d p a r t s ( e . g . , c o m p u t e r k e y b o a rdm o n i t o r , m o u s e ) , s y n o n y m s , a n da n t o n y m s (D . D . J o h n s o n , 2 0 0 1 ), C o nsequen t ly , in two s tud ies the re -

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searchers recommended teaching se-mantic organization and semanticconcepts.In conten t areas such as mathemat-ics, science, and social studies, stu-dents are required to learn new wordsthat represent unknown concepts{e.g., proportionality, photosynthesis,monarchy). As D, D.John son (2001)explained, "To learn any subject mat-ter, one must learn relevant concepts,facts, skills, and processes. These arealmost always expressed as or inwords. Thus, learning vocabulary isessential for learning any subject" (pp .96-97). Educators can present defini-tions and explanations of essentialconcepts, in addition, in an effort torelate new vocabuiary or co ncepts toold kniwledge, professionals can usesemantic maps and graphic organizerslo show how words and ideas are re-lated to each other (Luckner, Bowen,& Carter, 2001). Three advantages ofsemantic maps and graphic organizersare that (a) they provide a visual dis-play between concepts and the keyvocabulary, (b) the development ofthe visual often provides an avenuefor discussion and active thinking, and(c) exposure to many conceptually re-lated words often occurs (Schirmer,2000). Semantic feature analysis, theFrayer model, and semantic gradientsare additional techniques educatorscan use lo show relatiijnships amongvcicabulary or concep ts (Blacht)wicz &Fisher, 2010).

A challenge in designing vocabu-lary instruction for students who aredeaf or hard of hearing involves theselection of target words for instruc-tion. The researchers in two studiessLiggested that students be taughthigh- frequenc7 words (e.g., the, ofand, to, you, that, this). High-fre-quency words, often referred to assight words, make up about 65% of allwritten material (Harp & Brewer,2005). Many of these words carry min-

imal m eaning them selves. Yet they doaffect readers' ability to compreliendtext. Fry (1980) developed a list of the300 most common words used inprint. Carnine and colleagues (2004)devised a similar list of 400 words.Professionals can use a variety of activ-ities and procedures, such as wordbanks, word walls, and timed sight-reading word lists to make sure stu-dents are able to instantly recognizethese words. Once students can readhigh-frequency words in isolation,they should practice reading them intext.

In addition to directly teachingsight words, profe.ssionals will want todirectly teach specific word mean ings.In two studies, researchers recom-mended the introduction of keywords using rich and explicit exam-ples. At the beginning of a unit ofstudy or before students read a storyor a section of a textbook, it is benefi-cial to teach students specific wordsthat are central to the material beinglearned. If students are acquaintedwith the vocabuiary word or conceptbeing learned, then providing a syn-onym or definition, followed by a cou-ple of examples and nonexamples,may be sufficient. If students arelearning a new word that representsan unknown concept (e.g., evapora-tion), then providing a definition, ex-amples, nonexamples, discussion,graphic organizers, and daily reviewover the course of several days wouldbe appropriate (Carnine et al., 2004),When less time is available to explic-itly teach the meaning of a word, edu-cators will want to provide definitionsthat adhere to the format that in-cludes a class and then a distinctionwhen possible (e.g., "A dermatologistis a doctor who works with the skinand its diseases")-

Intensive vocabulary instructionwas the recommendation of the au-thors of two studies. Gaps in experi-

ences, concept development, and vo-cabulary need to be addressed by p r oviding students who are deaf or hardof hearing multiple in-context expo-sures to words across time. Researchwith hearing students suggests thatthey require between 12 (McKeown,Beck, Omanson, & Pople, 1985) and40 (Reutzel & Cooter, 2004) encoun-ters with a word before they know itwell enough to improve their tnmp re-hension and integrate it intt) their ex-isting knowledge base. Being read toand reading independently can sig-nificantly improve an individual's vo-cabulary growth. Yet because manystudents with a hearing loss strugglewith reading, they often choose not toread on their own (Strassman, 1992).As a result, they continue to perpetu-ate a restrictive cycle in which limitedreading leads to inadequate vt)cabu-lary growth, which in turn leads toinsufficient reading (de Villiers &Pomerantz, 1992). This sequence ofimpoverished vocabulary growth wassummarized by Flesch antl Lass(1996), who stated, "You can't build avocabulary without reading. You can'tmake friends if you never meet any-body, but stay home byyourself all thetime. In the same way, you can't buildup vocabulary if yo u never meet anynew words" (p. 105).

I^ck of vocabulary also hinders stu-dents ' ability to learn words inde-pendent of context. Consequently,word-learning skills should be explic-itly taught. Word-learning strategiesinclude knowing how to use wordparts as weil as using context clues tofigure out unknown words. Within-word an alysis refers to the process ofanalyzing words into m orphem es, th esmallest units of meaning in a word.Morphemic analysis is a useful strat-egy because most English words werecreated through the use of morpho-logical rules (e.g., adding prefixes andsuffixes to root words; compounding,

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contracting, abbreviating), and as a re-sult it has been estimated that almost6096 of words contain clues to theirmeaning (Nagy & Anderson, 1984).When introducing morphemes, edu-cators will want to begin with themost frequently used prefixes and suf-fixes. White, Sowell, and Yanighara(1989) identified U prefixes {un-, re-,in-, dis-, en-/em-, non-, in-/im-, over-,mis-, sub-, pre-) and six suffixes {-s/-es,-ed, -ing, -ly, -erI-or, -ionf-tion) thatappear in 80% of all prefixed and suf-fixed words.

"Context clues are hints about themeaning of an unknown word that areprovided in the words, phrases, andsentences that surround the word"(Armbruster et al., 2003, p. 40). Bla-chowicz and Fisher (2010) have sug-gested an instructional sequence forlearning how to use context clues:

1. LookBefore, at, and after theword.2. ReasonConnect what youknow with what the author haswritten.3- Predict a possible meaning.4. Resolve or redoDecide if youknow enough, should try again,or consult an expert or a refer-ence (e.g., dictionary or the-saurus), (p. 33)

Modeling, discussion, group practice,and independent practice should beincluded in narrative as well as expos-itory vocabulary instruction of mor-phemic analysis and context cluesstrategy instruction,Another factor that hinders devel-opment of reading comprehensionabilities in students who are deaf orhard of hearing and perpetuates thefourth-grade plateau that many ofthese students experience is the in-crease in decontextualized languageand the requirement to infer meaningfrom what is being read (Mayer, 2007;

Paul, 2009). Consequently, in two stud-ies the researchers suggested instruc-tion in inferential strategies to assistvocabulary development. To teachinferential skills, educators will wantto use the procedures discussedabovecontext clues and morpho-logical analysisas well as teach stu-dents to predict possible wordmeanings based on their backgroundknowledge of the concept.

As we have previously noted, addi-tional research needs to b e undertake nto enable a l:)etter understan ding of thespecific types of interactions andteaching approaches that help stu-dents who are deaf or hard of hearingdevelop age-appropriate vocabularyknowledge. Replication of the inter-vention studies summarized in thepresent article would be a valuablecontribution to the field. Additionally,intervention studies should be de-signed to determine if the recommen-dations based on reviewed descriptive,correlational, and causal-comparativestudies improve students' vocabularydevelopment.

Vocabulary programs that havebeen effective with other studentpopulations should also be researchedwith stud ents who are deaf or hard ofhearing. For example, Ixingua^e forLearning (grades pre-K-2; Engelman& Osborn, 2008) and Language forThinking (grades 1-3; Engelman &Osborn, 2002) are explicit instruc-tional programs with scripted lessonsto teach language skills to young chil-dren, as well as the basic language ofinstruction, concepts, and reascining.Vocahulary Improvement Progra?nfor English Language Learners andtheir Classmates (Carlo et al., 2004)is a program for students in grades4-6 that focuses on academic vocab-ulary and strategies for learning unfa-miliar words. Activities are designedto engage students in cooperativework, give them multiple encounters

with targeted words, and build wordconsciousness in a rich language at-mosphere.Furthermo re, a similar summary ofvocabulary research with childrenwho are deaf or hard of hearing fromages birth to 3 years should be con-ducted. Also, given the positive re-sults that have been attributed to earlyintervention services (e.g., Moeller,2000; Yoshinaga-Itano, 2003), it maybe beneficial to examine the impacton vocabulary development of in-creasing the duration or intensity, oraltering the delivery method, of earlyintervention services. For example,hom e in terventionists generally visit afamily once a week for an ho ur or two

(Brown & Yoshinaga-Itano, 1994).What would the impact on the child'svocabulary development be if visitsoccurred three times a week for 1hour each? What if they took placeonce a week in person for 2 hours andonce a week for 1 hour via vide(x:on-ferencing? What if once a year for aweek the family stayed in a "demon-stration house" with professionalswho provided intensive instruction,modeling, and feedback on communi-cation techniques? What if synchro-nous or asynchronous group classesfor families of similar-age childrenwere offered on the Internet? Re-search questions that address alterna-tive models of service delivery, such asthese, may be valuable to explore.

Conclusion"Words are the start ing point . Withoutwords , chi ldren can ' t t a lk about peo-ple, places, o r t h ings , about act ions ,relat ions , o r s t a t es" (Clark, 1993, p.ix). De pth an d bre adt h of voc abularyk n o wl ed g e affects individuals" abilityt o co m m u n i ca t e , t o u n d er s t an d wh a tthey read, to succeed academical ly aswell as in the world of work. The im-portance of vocabulary for success inthese areas was h ighl ighted in two re-

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cent U.S Department of Education re-ports, one on students in the primarygrades (Gersten et al., 2009) and oneon adolescents (Kamil et al., 2008).The authors em phasized that childrenand youth benefit from repeated ex-posure to vocabulary. Accordingly,they recommended that educators

1. dedicate a portion of regularclassroom lessons to explicit vo-cabulary instruction2. provide repeated exposure tonew wt)rds in multiple contexts,and allow sufficient practice ses-sions in vocabulary instruction3. give sufficient opportunities touse new vocabulary in a variety

of contexts through activitiessuch as discussion, writing, andextended reading4. provide students with strategiesto make them independent vocabulary learners5. integrate explicit vocabulary in-struction into content-area cur-ricula such as science and socialstudies in order to enhan ce stu-dents ' ability to acquire text-

book vocabularyStudents who are deaf or hard ofhearing lag behind their hearing peersin the critical area of vocabulary knowl-edge. A shortage of re.search to guideeducators currently exists. We hopethe synthe.sis of existent research aswell as the summary of suggestionsprovided in the present article willhelp increase the quantity and qualityof vocabulary instruction provided to

students, as well as guide and stimulateadditional investigations into how bestU) improve the vtKahulary skills of stu-dents who are deaf or hard of hearing.ReferencesAnieritun Psychological Association. (2001).Piihlicatiu?! iruifiual of the American Psy-chological Association t5th ed.). Wa.shing-

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Graves, M. F., Juel, C , & Graves, B. B. (1998).Teaching reading in the twenty-first cen-tury. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.Harp. B., & Brewer. J. O. (2 00^). The informedreading teacher. Research-hased practice.Upp er S addle River, NJ: Pearson.Hart, B., & Risley. T R. (1995). Meaningfuldifferences in the everyday experiences ofyoung American children. Bal t imore :Brot ikes.Hart, B.. & Risley. T R. (2003). The early catas-trophe: The ihirty-million-word gap by agethree . American Educator, 27(1), 4-9.Holden-Pitt, I.., & Diaz, J. A. (199H). Thirty yearsof the Annual Survey of Deaf and Hard ofHearing Children and Youth: A glance o verthe decades . American Annals of the DeafN3(2). 72-76 .Huck, S. W (2008). Reading statistics and re-search (5th ed.). Boston; Pearson.Huttenlcx:he r. J., Ha ight. W. Bryk, A., Seltzer, M.,& Lyons, T (199 1). Earty v(.x:abuiary gro wth ;Relation to language input and gender. De -velopmental Psychology. 27 , 236-244.Johnson, D. D. (2001). Vocahulary in the ele-mentary and middle school. Boston: Allyn&. Bacon.Johnson, G., Gersten, R., & Carnine, D. (19H7).Effects of instructiiinal tiesign variables onvocabulary acquisition of LD students; Astudy of computer-assisted in.struction.your-nal of Learn ing Disahilities, 20 , 206-213 .Kamil. M. L, Btirman, G. D., Dole,J., Krai, C. C,Salinger. T, & Torgesen. J. (2008). Improv-ing adolescent literacy: Effective classtrx^mand intervention practices (NCEE Public

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