The Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2) brings together an international team to study how visual and gestural languages facilitate the learning of written English and how visual learning environments and visual technologies promote social and cognitive development. VL2's goal is to introduce pedagogies that improve academic performance for deaf students and others who rely on the visual modality for learning. VL2 includes scholars from a variety of disciplines (neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, computer science, and education) who seek to understand language and literacy development in individuals who are deaf. A central question that drives VL2 research pertains to how visually presented linguistic information for individuals with only visual input gives rise to mastery of print-literacy, given the phonetic basis for written English. Beyond the obvious benefits that answers to this question have for children who are deaf, it is certain that these answers will increase our basic understanding of the nature of language, may challenge assumptions about the role of phonetics as the sole pathway in reading development, and will lead to the development of visually-based pedagogical principles that will benefit all children.
Dr. Thomas E. Allen is PI of the newly-NSF-funded Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning at Gallaudet University. Dr. Allen has also been Dean of the Gallaudet University Graduate School since 1998. During his tenure, the School has made significant gains, especially in the number of doctoral programs and in the number of Ph.D. degrees awarded. Ph.Ds in Linguistics and Audiology have been introduced under Dr. Allen's leadership. Before becoming Dean, Dr. Allen was the Director of the Gallaudet Research Institute, where he oversaw many complex and multi-faceted national statistical studies of deaf students and schools, including studies of classroom communication and of school-to-work transition. As a Research Scientist with the GRI, he led two national psychometric projects to establish norms and adapted testing procedures for deaf test takers of the Stanford Achievement Test. He has been the PI or Co-PI on over $1.7 million of external federal and state grants.
This talk is part of the CLIP Colloquium Series, organized by Jimmy Lin (jimmylin -at- umd .dot. edu). For the complete schedule, please visit http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/research/CLIP/colloq/.