The American Sign Language Comprehension Test (ASL-CT) is a 30-item multiple-choice test that measures ASL receptive skills and is administered through a website. This article describes the development and psychometric properties of the test based on a sample of 80 college students including deaf native signers, hearing native signers, deaf non-native signers, and hearing ASL students. The results revealed that the ASL-CT has good internal reliability (α = 0.834). Discriminant validity was established by demonstrating that deaf native signers performed significantly better than deaf non-native signers and hearing native signers. Concurrent validity was established by demonstrating that test results positively correlated with another measure of ASL ability (r = .715) and that hearing ASL students' performance positively correlated with the level of ASL courses they were taking (r = .726). Researchers can use the ASL-CT to characterize an individual's ASL comprehension skills, to establish a minimal skill level as an inclusion criterion for a study, to group study participants by ASL skill (e.g., proficient vs. nonproficient), or to provide a measure of ASL skill as a dependent variable.
Background: Users of American Sign Language (ASL) who are deaf often face barriers receiving health information, contributing to significant gaps in health knowledge and health literacy. To reduce the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 and its risk to the public, the government and health care providers have encouraged social distancing, use of face masks, hand hygiene, and quarantines. Unfortunately, COVID-19 information has rarely been available in ASL, which puts the deaf community at a disadvantage for accessing reliable COVID-19 information. Objective: This study's primary objective was to compare COVID-19-related information access between participants who are deaf and participants who are hearing. Methods: The study included 104 adults who are deaf and 74 adults who are hearing who had participated in a prior health literacy study. Surveys were conducted between April and July 2020 via video conference, smartphone apps, or phone calls. COVID-19 data were linked with preexisting data on demographic and health literacy data as measured by the Newest Vital Sign (NVS) and the ASL-NVS. Key Results: Neither group of participants differed in their ability to identify COVID-19 symptoms. Adults who are deaf were 4.7 times more likely to report difficulty accessing COVID-19 information (p = .011), yet reported using more preventive strategies overall. Simultaneously, adults who are deaf had 60% lower odds of staying home and calling their doctor versus seeking health care immediately or doing something else compared with participants who are hearing if they suspected that they had COVID-19 (p = .020). Conclusions: Additional education on recommended COVID-19 management and guidance on accessible health care navigation strategies are needed for the deaf community and health care providers. Public health officials should ensure that public service announcements are accessible to all audiences and should connect with trusted agents within the deaf community to help disseminate health information online in ASL through their social media channels.
Introduction To reduce COVID-19 exposure risk, virtual visits became widely adopted as a common form of healthcare delivery for the general population. It is unknown how this affected the deaf population, a sociolinguistic minority group that continues to face communication and healthcare barriers. The survey's objective was to describe the deaf participants’ experiences with telehealth visits. Methods A 28-item online survey, available in American Sign Language and English, was developed and disseminated between November 2020 and January 2021. Ninety-nine deaf participants responded. Descriptive statistics were performed to assess the participant's virtual health care use, experiences, and communication approaches. Results Seventy-five percent of respondents used telehealth at least once in the past 12 months (n = 74; age = 37.6 ± 14.5 years). Of those who used telehealth, nearly two-thirds experienced communication challenges (65.3%; n = 49). Half of the participants reported having to connect via a video relay service that employs interpreters who maintain general certification instead of a remote interpreter with specialized health care interpreting certifications for video visits with their health care providers (n = 37) and a third of participants reported needing to use their residual hearing to communicate with their providers (n = 25). Conclusion Standard protocols for health care systems and providers are needed to minimize the burden of access on deaf patients and ensure virtual visits are equitable. It is recommended these visits be offered on Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-compliant platforms and include multi-way video to allow for the inclusion of remote medical interpreters and/or real-time captionists to ensure effective communication between the provider and the deaf patient occurs.
The Miranda warning was drafted in order to inform people of their rights upon arrest in an easy to understand manner. However, to understand the warning a person needs a high school level reading comprehension (which is above the level of most offenders). Among these offenders, deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) individuals are particularly prone to misinterpreting the Miranda warning due to language barriers with law enforcement and below average English literacy compared to hearing individuals. Two studies were performed. The first compared Miranda warning comprehension between hearing and DHH participants, and it was found that DHH participants showed overall lower comprehension. The second study, consisting only of DHH participants, compared the effectiveness of four different presentations of the Miranda warning: signed in American Sign Language (ASL), signed in Signed Exact English (SEE), oral presentation, and written presentation. The written presentation demonstrated the lowest comprehension scores while the other three methods showed no significant difference in comprehension. The results suggest that the Miranda warning is best administered to DHH individuals with the assistance of a certified sign language interpreter. Limitations of the sample and directions for future research are discussed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.