Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) - National Technical ...

SUMMARY OF RESEARCH ACTIVITIES (continued)
3. Communication in the Personal, Learning and Working Environments
Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI) Reliability and Validity. A within SLPI Rating Teams
(three raters per team) report for 159 SLPI interviews conducted at NTID from 2003 through 2005
supports that the SLPI evaluation protocol successfully accomplishes its goal to converge toward
increasingly reliable and valid ratings through the use of independent ratings and negotiated
discussion in relation to a standardized scaled linguistic performance profile. In 2009 this report was
published in Contemporary Issues in Communication Science and Disorders (CICSD). Additional
information about SLPI reliability and validity is posted at the SLPI website www.ntid.rit.edu/slpi.
Ongoing monitoring of within NTID SLPI Team members’ ratings continued during AY08-09 in order
to help ensure the continued reliability and validity of the SLPI process at NTID and to help plan SLPI
in-service training for NTID SLPI Team members. In addition, recommendations for updating the
NTID SLPI Database were completed. This updating is intended to help ensure accuracy and
consistency of SLPI results entered into this database.
NTID Faculty/Staff American Sign Language Skills Baseline Study. This project, which is designed to
provide information about NTID faculty/exempt staff members’ (F/ES) American Sign Language (ASL)
skills at time of job entry and to monitor development of these skills over time, includes (a) an ASL
skills declaration form that is sent to F/ES with letters of hire, (b) SLPI services for selected F/ES
within two weeks of job entry dates, and (c) an annual request for all study participants who have not
achieved an Advanced or above Sign Language Proficiency Interview (SLPI) rating to take the SLPI
during spring quarter. During AY 08-09 project methodology was refined and the Office of
Communication Assessment Services Sign Language Proficiency Interview Database was reviewed
and recommendations initiated to help to ensure the information needed to conduct this study are
entered into this database. From among NTID F/ES with AY 06-07 through AY 08-09 job entry dates,
13 exempt staff and 18 faculty have consented to participate in this study. Plans are to continue to
annually recruit new participants for this project and to monitor the ASL skills development of study
participants over several years in order to identify reasonable timelines for ASL skills development by
NTID F/ES and to identify factors that may influence this development.
Effects of Fingerspellling Complexity on Temporal Characteristics and Speech Naturalness of Speech
Produced During Simultaneous Communication by Inexperienced Signers. Previous research using
experienced signers has demonstrated that as fingerspelling becomes more complex during
simultaneous communication, there are numerous temporal disruptions, which can affect the inherent
timing of speech. These temporal disruptions took the form of sentence, word and diphthong
prolongations, as well as systematically increasing pauses before and/or after experimental words
which increased in complexity, (i.e., care, careless, carelessly, carelessness). Data are lacking
regarding fingerspelling complexity during simultaneous communication for inexperienced signers.
Since many of the individuals deaf children communicate with (i.e., parents, siblings, peers) are not
experienced signers, it would be useful to study these individuals to better understand the speech
model that is being presented to deaf children as the manual task becomes more complex in
simultaneous communication. Such information will add to the pool of knowledge regarding speech
during simultaneous communication and eventually assist in developing and improving
communication strategies between deaf and hearing persons. All data have been measured and
statistical analysis completed.
4. Enrollment Management (Diversity, Minority Issues, Recruitment, Persistence and Graduation
Rates)
Survive and Thrive Project: A Study of a Sample of 2007 and 2008 Entering Students. Recent
research suggests that academic skills alone do not account for persistence rates of entering NTID
students. To investigate what other factors might be involved, data was collected from 299 students
(approximately half of each entering class in 2008 and 2009). Results are consistent across both
Research -130-
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