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The annual Macnamara-Bregman Lecture is held in honor of the scientific and academic contributions of John Macnamara (1929-1996) and his friend Albert Bregman (1936-2023).
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4 April 2025, 15h30-17h
Location: tbd
Rain Bosworth, PhD
Associate Professor, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology
Lab Website:
Title: Deaf Children’s Exploratory Behaviors and Caregiver Guidance during Play in the Preschool Classroom and Museum
Abstract: Compelled by curiosity and a desire to learn, children naturally explore. Hands-on object exploration is important for building vocabulary and knowledge about how the world works, especially during shared discovery with caregivers who often provide guidance. Among children who are born deaf, a large majority may experience long-term learning delays because of early lack of access to ambient language, even with audiological intervention. This milieu may impact how deaf children explore. Moreover, children who rely on visual-manual signed languages for communication may have different ways of exploring for learning, compared to children who rely on speech for communication. This talk will present preliminary findings from ongoing research projects that describe the quality, depth and frequency of children’s exploratory behaviors in two settings - a classroom and at a children’s museum.Ìý We video recorded hearing and deaf children in classroom and museum settings. Using ELAN, trained student research assistants coded each child’s children’s tactile exploratory behaviors, communicative behaviors and language use. We use linear mixed models to test hypotheses that either deafness or sign language experience impacts tactile exploratory behaviors. We also examine how caregivers (teachers in classrooms or parents in the museum) guide their children’s exploratory behaviors. We hypothesize that caregivers have unique intuitive ways of guiding their child’s exploration but some guidance behaviors may be more or less helpful for children’s exploration. By the end of this talk, we will have a better understanding of the importance of child’s exploration and caregiver guidance on child’s learning. We will consider the possible ways that deafness and signed language experience may impact children’s free and structured sensorimotor exploratory behaviors in various settings -- a classroom with peers and teachers and a museum, during cooperative interaction with a parent.