In the last quarter of the 20th century, federal legislation sought to eliminate disability-based discrimination by requiring reasonable accommodations in school and the workplace. One result of this legislation has been increased access to U.S. colleges and universities by deaf and hard of hearing persons. The present article reviews the literature on employment of persons who are deaf or hard of hearing and reports results of a recent analysis that used the 2010 American Community Survey (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010a). It was found that significant gains in college attendance and graduation occurred during the period, with individuals who attained a college degree realizing increased employment and earnings relative to individuals who had not graduated. It was also found that college graduation helps reduce the gap between the earnings of deaf persons with a college degree and those of comparably educated hearing persons.

This study explored deaf and hearing university students' metacognitive awareness with regard to comprehension difficulties during reading and classroom instruction. Utilising the Reading Awareness Inventory (Milholic, V. 1994. An inventory to pique students' metacognitive awareness of reading strategies. Journal of Reading 38: 84-6), parallel inventories were created to tap metacognitive awareness during comprehension of sign language (deaf students) and spoken language (hearing students). Overall, both deaf and hearing students appeared to have greater metacognitive awareness of ongoing comprehension and repair strategies during reading than during instruction in the classroom, but deaf students scored lower than hearing students in both modalities. Deaf students were no more likely than hearing students to report adopting inappropriate strategies, but both groups indicated they were more likely to do so in classroom contexts than during reading.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract