Teachers’ Communication with Their Deaf Students: An Australian Study

A survey of Australian teachers of the deaf was conducted following the format used in the United States by Woodward and Allen (1988). A majority (n = 245) of teachers in special schools and programs for the deaf responded to the study and provided information about their classroom communication practices. Responses to further questions which asked about specific communication behavior were related to the teachers’ descriptions of their communication preferences. Results indicated that 65% of the teachers reported the use of speech with sign and that 84% of these teachers said they used the artificial sign system, Australasian Signed English. In addition, their use of Australasian Signed English was reflected in the encoding of the morphemes in test sentences. All but 4% of the morphemes in the sentences were correctly encoded. Although some teachers reported the use of sign language (2%) all but one of these respondents reported a standard signed English presentation with matching lip patterns when responding to subsequent questions in the study. These results are in strong contrast to the results of the Woodward and Allen study. This may be due to differences in the design and use of the artificial sign systems involved and teachers’ commitment to the system used.