Research / Survey Opportunities

Agencies, Organizations, Universities and others are often looking for participation of families and professionals for current research and survey projects. Each opportunity listed below has contact information if you would like to participate. Please contact the specific entity that is sponsoring each research/survey opportunity if you would like more information.

Unless otherwise noted, Hands & Voices does not necessarily promote the goals and objectives of listed research/survey opportunities and participants are advised to clarify any questions/concerns prior to participation with contacts listed for each research/survey opportunity.

For information on submitting your project for inclusion on this page please read our submittal request sheet. Also, here is an example of a sample submission.

Parent Research / Survey Opportunities
- Descriptions of Studies -

Deaf Adolescents' Online Activities, Friendship Qualities, and Their Influence on Well-Being

• We are looking for deaf and hard of hearing students between 13 and 18 years of ageto participate in an online survey about their online activities, the quality of their friendships, and how these affect their well-being.
• The survey takes only 15 minutes to complete and is completely confidential.
• A lottery will select 8 winners of $25 each from the participating students

I am a deaf graduate student from Radboud University Nijmegen, in the Netherland, visiting the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) and Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Currently, I am conducting a study into deaf and hard-of-hearing students' online social networking activities. The goal is to understand how those activities and the friendships they support affect deaf and hard-of-hearing students' feelings of social integration and well-being. Also of interest are differences between them and hearing students both in the United States and in the Netherlands, countries that are very similar but appear to differ in the nature of friendships.

The study will provide us more insight into the online activities and the quality of online friendships of hearing, deaf-and-hard of hearing youth. The results will be used to find alternative ways to build and improve deaf adolescents’ friendships and to try to give them more insights into how they could improve their social lives and, indirectly, their general well-being.

My research in the U.S. is being conducted in coordination with the Center for Education Research Partnerships at NTID, and is beingsupervised by Dr. Marc Marschark. To participate, students complete an online survey about their online social activities, the quality of their friendships, and how these affect their well-being. It requires only about 15 minutes to complete and will completely confidential. No one except the researchers will see the information provided, and we do not ask for students’ names. A lottery will select 8 winners of $25 each from the participating students.

If you are willing to allow your child to participate in this online survey, please e-mail me at hcberp@rit.edu. I will direct your deaf son(s) or daughter(s) to the secure website where they can complete the survey. Although the survey asks for your child's e-mail address for the purpose of the lottery, please ask them not to fill it in. Instead, we will use parents' e-mail addresses to select the winners. That way, all student participation will be anonymous.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at CERP@rit.edu or hcberp@rit.edu

Yours sincerely,

Helen C. Blom
Marc Marschark

T H E    U N I V E R S I T Y    O F   B R I T I S H    C O L U M B I A

Faculty of Education
Department of Educational &Counselling Psychology & Special Education
2125 Main Mall
Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6T 1Z4
604-822-8539 Tel, 604-822-3302 Fax

Children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing: Child Social-Emotional Competence, Child Communication Competence, and Parental Stress

Do you have a child with hearing loss (who is deaf or hard of hearing) between the ages of 5 and 12?

As a mother of a young child with hearing loss, I know how important it is to foster healthy social-emotional development in our children. Not much is known about factors contributing to positive social-emotional development in children with hearing loss and so I need your help. Please consider participating in a study for my Master’s thesis that will consider relationships between child social-emotional competence, child communication competence and parental stress in a sample of parents of young children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Details:

• 25-35 minute electronic survey (you will not be identified by name)
• A chance to win a $100 Visa gift card
• To participate e-mail sedevstudy@gmail.com and you will be sent a unique online link

For more information contact:

Brita Colero
sedevstudy@gmail.com
604-822-8539

Hands & Voices is pleased to announce it’s Partnership with the:  

National Early Childhood Assessment Project (NECAP – “kneecap”)

Principal Investigator: Christine Yoshinaga-Itano, Ph.D.
Project Coordinator: Allison Sedey, Ph.D.

We are excited to announce a new project awarded to Dr. Christine Yoshinaga-Itano at the University of Colorado-Boulder by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).  The aims of this project are to:

• support interested states in implementing a standard assessment battery for children from birth to 4 years of age who are deaf or hard of hearing
• examine the feasibility of creating a national database of early childhood outcomes
• assist states in interpreting assessment results and using these results to drive intervention goals and decisions
• characterize the service delivery models of early intervention programs throughout the United States
• determine early intervention program characteristics that are related to more successful language outcomes for children who are deaf or hard of hearing

Eligible Participants

All children from 6 months to 4 years of age with permanent hearing loss are eligible to participate.  Children whose loss is not permanent (e.g., cases where the hearing loss is solely a result of otitis media) are not eligible.  Eligible children may have:

• Unilateral or bilateral loss
• Conductive, senori-neural, or mixed hearing loss
• Any degree of permanent hearing loss from mild to profound
• Multiple disabilities or hearing loss only
• English or Spanish as the language of the home

Benefits of Participation

Individual Child and Family Benefits

• Includes parent input in the assessment process
• Measures children’s skills and abilities across a variety of developmental areas
• Allows parents and interventionists to monitor a child’s progress over time and identify potential delays at their onset
• Compares a child’s language abilities to both children who are hearing and other children with hearing loss
• Provides a data-driven approach to making educational programming decisions
• Assists in the generation of IFSP/IEP goals

Program Benefits

• Provides statewide and program-specific accountability data on an annual basis
• Allows programs to examine outcomes across different subgroups of children
• Informs professional personnel preparation needs
• Includes access to normative test data on children who are deaf or hard or hearing
• Results in networking with program directors and EHDI personnel in other states
• Gives states an opportunity to contribute to a national database which will allow us to characterize the language strengths and weaknesses of children with hearing loss and identify factors that are predictive of more successful language outcomes

If you have questions or are interested in becoming involved in this project, please contact:

Allison Sedey
University of Colorado-Boulder
409 UCB
Boulder, CO  80309
303: 492-0078
Allison.Sedey@Colorado.edu

Hands & Voices Contact:  Janet DesGeorges
303-492-6283
janet@handsandvoices.org

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Science of Learning Center on Visual Languages and Visual Learning (VL2)at Gallaudet University

ANNOUNCING the launch of a longitudinal study of young deaf and hard of hearing children by the Science of Learning Center on Visual Languages and Visual Learning (VL2) at Gallaudet University.  The three-year study will involve gathering detailed information and collecting data regarding young deaf and hard of hearing children’s language development, communication, and developmental profiles.

Along with surveys of parents, teachers, and school administrators, a comprehensive battery of assessments administered by trained evaluators from Gallaudet University will be given to deaf and hard of hearing children whose families agree to participate.    

VL2 is seeking schools to participate in the study.  Parents are encouraged to talk to their school administrators and inform them about the study.  Participation is not limited to children who sign; all communication approaches are eligible to participate.

I have set up a blog on the VL2 Public Wiki http://vl2wiki.editme.com/ to provide updates about the project and to answer questions that you may have. 

Sharon Baker, Research-Practice Integration Team member

 For more information or to register as a partnership school, contact:

Thomas Allen, Ph.D., Principal Investigator
Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning
Gallaudet University SLCC 1200
800 Florida Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20002
Phone: 202-651-5866

Email: VL2@gallaudet.edu

Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2)
The VL2 Center, located on the campus of Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, is one of six Science of Learning Centers (SLC) funded by the National Science Foundation grant # SBE-0541953.  The Center brings together deaf and hearing researchers and educators from national and international institutions to conduct interrelated studies across disciplines. VL2’s primary mission is to gain a greater under­standing of the biological, cognitive, linguistic, sociocultural, and pedagogical conditions that influence visual language and visual learning.  More information may be found at www.vl2.gallaudet.edu.

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Cochlear Implantation among deaf children with
additional needs

Parental perspectives of child and family outcomes
and experiences

Paid volunteers needed to participate in a study

Please Join Us in This Important Study!

If you are:

• A parent
• Your child has a cochlear implant
• Your child has additional needs such as: Autism, Cerebral palsy, or health impairments

then we need YOUR HELPto learn about parents’ experiences of the cochlear implantation process for their child and their family. At the moment, very little is known about the benefits and challenges of cochlear implantation for deaf children with additional needs and their families, especially from parents perceptive. Your experiences are important to us!!!

Our hope is to assist professionals and cochlear implant teams to optimize service delivery for deaf children with cochlear implants who have additional needs, and their families. Moreover, parent-generated information has been found to be very helpful to other parents who have similar experiences.

Please consider either completing a survey (either online or in a paper format) and/or participating in an interview. We are asking for no more than one hour of your time!!!

Conducted by:

The University of British Columbia, Canada

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SURVEY ON FM USE FOR CHILDREN WITH HEARING LOSS

To our colleagues and to parents of children
with hearing loss

We are trying to understand how many children with hearing loss are using FM systems. If they are using them, at what ages, and in what conditions they are used. We have developed a quick and easy survey that we want to distribute to parents of children with hearing loss (assuming that they will know best how and where their children are using FM's). We would appreciate it if you could share this survey link with the parents of children you work with in the hope that they will be willing to complete the information. Families with more than one child with hearing loss should complete the form separately for each child.  We are really grateful for your help

Thank you, Jane Madell and Carol Flexer

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FMkids

Jane R. Madell, PhD
Director, Pediatric Audiology Consulting
Jane@JaneMadell.com

Carol Flexer, PhD
Distinguished Professor Emeritus
University of Akron
cflexer@uakron.edu

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The Handheld Signing Math & Science Dictionaries for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Museum Visitors Research Project

The MoS and TERC are looking for families and school groups to use and
give opinions about a new portable, 3D dictionary of ASL science and
math terms that is on an iPod Touch.

Come to the Museum of Science in Boston FREE
(with free parking for families and bus transportation
for school groups) and use the 3D
ASL dictionary to explore 1 of 2 exhibits:
- Run, jump and swing at “Science in the Park”
- “Take a Closer Look” with your senses!
- Give your opinion of the 3D ASL
science dictionary
- Explore the Museum!
Please contact Tara Robillard by email:
tara_robillard@terc.edu or phone: 617-873-9872 for more information,
and/or to set up a visit date and time. Scheduling visits now for
February – December of 2012!

more info...