Editorial

I was working on an editorial for this edition of the Annals when I received copies of the articles for the summer, 2006 edition for a final read-through before they were sent out for typesetting. I put the editorial aside and began to read the articles one last time for content and proofreading. As is typical for this journal, the articles addressed a range of topics: fingerspelling and sign language, mental health services, assessment of academic functioning, teacher interaction with a deafblind child, technology and the teaching of mathematics, health and incidence of overweight among deaf children, sign language assessment, and reading comprehension. There was something unique bout the summer edition, however: the international nature of the work. The first authors for the eight articles were based in six different countries; two were from the United States, two from the Netherlands, and one each from England, Israel, Taiwan, and Spain, with the last one representing a Spanish-Chilean research team reporting on research on Chilean Sign Language. At this point, I put aside the editorial I was working on—either for the winter issue or for good, and reflected on the implications of this development.

First, I received a charge more than ten years ago from the Joint Annals Administrative Committee to encourage manuscript submissions from outside of the United States and Canada. This has been successful and the percentage of manuscripts from other countries has increased steadily. Most issues of the Annals have least one or two articles from other countries. This has been facilitated by the fact that almost all manuscripts are now submitted—and reviewed—electronically. Also, English is a commonly used academic language and authors usually are familiar with it.

I went back and looked at the articles appearing in the Annals over the past few years. Although each country is unique, the topics addressed in the articles appear to be independent of the country of origin. Work on reading comprehension, sign language assessment, mental health, math instruction, school placement, children with multiple disabilities, and perceived stress could have come from any number of countries and have general application. Research techniques—from data gathering to analysis to reporting—are similar. In essence, communication barriers are coming down rapidly and we already are becoming more and more a global village.

From my informal analysis, it appears that the number and quality of the North American manuscript submissions remain high while the external submissions are also high and are increasing in number. The outcome is that of a more highly competitive process, which is of benefit to deaf and hard of hearing children and adults.

It seems to me that globalization is having an impact on our field much like it is having on all aspects of society, whether we are talking about entertainment, cuisine, business, or sports. Hollywood makes movies with a worldwide audience in mind. The CEO of a major Japanese company is Brazilian and there are leaders in Silicon Valley from India. I remember reading a few years ago a comment from a representative of a U.S. company—I think it was Coca Cola—to the effect that, "We are not an American company. We are an international company that happens to be based in Atlanta, Georgia."

Perhaps the clearest example of international interaction, at least to someone such as I who is interested in sports, is related to athletic competition. The American and National baseball leagues in the United States have significant numbers of athletes from Latin America and Japan. The elite European soccer teams frequently are led by stars from other European nations as well as from South America, Africa, and North Africa. Not too many years ago many Canadians doubted if Europeans and Americans could ever attain the skill levels needed to play in the National Hockey League. The most recent world championship game was played between teams from two Scandinavian countries. Perhaps the best example was the assumption that American basketball players from the ­National Basketball Association (NBA), as exemplified by Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird, would never lose in international competition. In the past few years, teams manned by NBA players...