Research tells us that academic preparation is key to deaf students' success at college. Yet, that is not the whole story. Many academically prepared students drop out during their first year. This study identified entering deaf college students' personal factors as assessed by their individual responses to both the Noel-Levitz College Student Inventory Form B and the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory, second edition (LASSI). Entering students in 3 successive cohorts (total n =437) participated in this study. Results show that in addition to entry measurements of reading and mathematic skills, personal factors contributed to the academic performance of students in their first quarter in college. The Noel-Levitz provided the comparatively better predictive value of academic performance: Motivation for Academic Study Scale (e.g., desire to finish college). The LASSI also showed statistically significant predictors, the Self-Regulation Component (e.g., time management) and Will Component (e.g., self-discipline), but accounted for relatively less variability in the students' initial grade point averages. For this group of underprepared students, results show that personal factors can play a significant role in academic success. Deaf students' personal factors are discussed as they relate to other first-year college students and to their subsequent academic performance and persistence.

Two comprehension studies were conducted with 46 deaf college students. In the first, 20 deaf college students representing higher and lower reading-ability levels were tested for correctly stating the main idea of a passage, answering content questions, indicating their understanding of the words and phrases, and recognizing a topically incongruent sentence embedded in the passage. The results suggest that deaf students profess a better understanding of what they read than they are able to demonstrate. The students' inability to identify a topically incongruent sentence in the passage further suggests a need for them to more carefully and accurately evaluate their understanding of what they are reading. A second study investigated the effect of strategy review instruction on deaf college students' comprehension of short reading passages. Students reading at a higher level showed improved comprehension on the posttraining passage, but students reading at a lower level did not. Similarly, the control group of deaf students comparable to the higher-level readers did not show improved comprehension.

Consider this passage from a letter written by Robert H. Weitbrecht, a physicist who was born deaf and went on to change the lives of deaf people throughout the world: . . . Perhaps I was more fortunate than the average deaf child. My family had upheavals during my teens—my father passed away and we had difficult circumstances. My mother had faith in me and saw to it that I was given the best possible chance during these times. (Weitbrecht to Srnka, 1966) . . . As a young boy, Weitbrecht had difficulties learning to speak. His parents and teachers were not sure about his potential to acquire a normal education. Weitbrecht was teased by his peers because of his deafness. He did not have very positive self-esteem, and he was not happy in school. Despite the doubts and challenges, he went on to earn several academic degrees. In 1964, Weitbrecht developed a modem (“acoustic coupler”) which enabled deaf people to use the telephone via a teletypewriter (TTY). Weitbrecht’s modem was a major breakthrough in the lives of deaf and hard-of-hearing people, who had waited more than 90 years since the invention of the voice telephone by Alexander Graham Bell. It brought to them both access and independence with regard to long-distance communication. Weitbrecht’s story is one of a young deaf child with questionable abilities who went on to be successful in his chosen field. It is also a story that has often been repeated (Lang & Meath-Lang, 1995). Despite all of the hurdles which have threatened to thwart their progress, deaf people have found ways to go over, under, and around the barriers of attitude and access to distinguish themselves in many fields of endeavor. Imagine how much more they could do if society did not make it so hard for them. This book is about learning, teaching, and the education of children who are deaf or hard of hearing, but it is not intended solely for those who make their living by teaching. Rather, it is intended for parents, service providers, policymakers, and lay readers as well as teachers—anyone interested in the education of deaf children, whether or not they have a formal educational role.

For over 30 years, teachers have used miscue analysis as a tool to assess and evaluate the reading abilities of hearing students in elementary and middle schools and to design effective literacy programs. More recently, teachers of deaf and hard-of-hearing students have also reported its usefulness for diagnosing word- and phrase-level reading difficulties and for planning instruction. To our knowledge, miscue analysis has not been used with older, college-age deaf students who might also be having difficulty decoding and understanding text at the word level. The goal of this study was to determine whether such an analysis would be helpful in identifying the source of college students' reading comprehension difficulties. After analyzing the miscues of 10 college-age readers and the results of other comprehension-related tasks, we concluded that comprehension of basic grade school-level passages depended on the ability to recognize and comprehend key words and phrases in these texts. We also concluded that these diagnostic procedures provided useful information about the reading abilities and strategies of each reader that had implications for designing more effective interventions.

This study examines how students construct meaning through writing during authentic science activities. To determine how well students understood science concepts, we analyzed 228 writing samples from deaf students in grades 6 through 11 as well as the explanatory and reflective comments of their teachers. The analyses indicate that certain process writing strategies were differentially useful in helping deaf students to construct meaning and in allowing teachers to evaluate the constructed meaning. Three instructional conditions and two teacher variables were found to play roles in determining the accuracy and adequacy of the writing: (1) the writing prompts the teachers used, (2) the focus for the writing, (3) follow-up to the initial writing activity, (4) the teacher's content knowledge, and (5) the teacher's ability to interpret student writing. The authors recommend future applications of writing-to-learn strategies and suggest directions for further research and changes in teacher education.