Deaf Children's Engagement in an Educational Video in American Sign Language

Over time, children's educational television has successfully modified programming to incorporate research-based strategies to facilitate learning and engagement during viewing. However, research has been limited on whether these same strategies would work with preschool deaf children viewing videos in American Sign Language. In a descriptive study, engagement behaviors of 25 preschool deaf children during multiple viewings of an educational video in ASL were examined. The video incorporated research-based interactive strategies to facilitate engagement while targeting vocabulary through ASL, fingerspelling, and English print. Each of 3 viewing sessions was recorded; videos were transcribed and coded for frequency of children's movements, pointing, fingerspelling, and signing. Behaviors were analyzed for frequency within and across multiple viewings and by level of signing skills. It was found that each of these engagement behaviors occurred frequently throughout viewings and increased across multiple viewings regardless of a child's age or signing skills.