December News

Looking back after one year

A proper research paper with quantitative data will be published in the new year by Dr. Tane Akamatsu and Dr. Connie Mayer.

What follows is raw data. We have yet to verify this data. For example we have to make sure that some of the usage statistics were not generated by loaning the device to a sister or friend. Proper research results will be published as soon as they become available.

We believe the following to be true at this time.

TOILS objectives were to determine:

If deaf students use wireless text messaging technology
If the use of wireless text messaging improve literacy
If the use of wireless text messaging improve social and independence skills

We now have quantitative and interview data which demonstrates this technology is of assistance to deaf children at least as young as 12 years old.

Social and independence skills mean that people have the information and know how to make decisions. One measure of independence is the number of places that parents will allow their children to go on their own. Below we show how this changed during the first four months of having the wireless text messaging devices.

All students reported they had more freedom. Some were given significantly more freedom. All parents reported feeling more secure knowing they could contact their children and find out where they were.

This meets the first objective of this research. Now we have to quantitatively measure the improvement in literacy and social / independence skills.

While this research on literacy and social skills of teenagers is progressing we wish to find out how early in a child's life this technology can be useful. So far the yougest age we have tested is 12. But we have observed far younger children playing with electronic games.

Another question is whether there is other function which deaf students would use and would have a measurable improvement of their linguistic and social skills:

Dictionaries - English and other languages
Picture dictionaries
Sign (ASL) dictionaries
Syntax checkers
Organizer function
Other function

Significant increases in permitted independence have been acheived by the students who have received these wireless text messaging devices. Only a few have not been allowed increased independence. This chart understates the impact of this technology; to see this imagine drawing the second chart much bigger than the first. For example imagine that visit to relatives stays the same and everything else has to get bigger to be in proportion.