Making Science Accessible to Deaf Students: The Need for Science Literacy and Conceptual Teaching

Upon examination of current literature, there is a noticeable disparity between suggested science teaching practice and what actually happens in the classroom. This disparity may be more pronounced in science classrooms of deaf students for several reasons discussed in this paper. Science education professionals recommend conceptual teaching, but rote, procedural teaching is often the reality. This is a call to arms for teachers of the deaf to teach science conceptually in an effort to afford deaf students more opportunities to grasp meaning and not function merely at the recall level.