Deaf children and research:  A model of good practice and participation.

Schools for deaf children are being faced with an increasing demand for research, which whilst highly valuable, needs to be balanced against the impact of the interruptions to pupils’ education.

Deafness Cognition and Language (DCAL) Research Centre have recently coordinated an important agreement on involving deaf children in academic research.  Based at (UCL) University College London and funded by Economic and Social Research Council, DCAL was set up to carry out several large scale research projects, many of which would involve deaf children. 

Professor Gary Morgan who leads developmental research at the centre, was keen to ensure that schools and children approached to be involved in such projects would not be adversely effected. Using its standing as the leading academic research centre in the field DCAL brought together a wide range of organisations to develop a good practice agreement for research with deaf children. The agreement aimed to ensure that the educational achievements and well being of the children were paramount to researchers as well as educators. 

Professor Morgan said

“The Good Practice agreement is relevant for all deaf children, whether they use sign language or speech to communicate. It ensures that everyone takes care in managing their relationships for the benefit of all involved, especially children.”

Key to the project were the British Association of Teachers of the Deaf (BATOD), the Sign Bilingual Consortium and the Frank Barnes School for the Deaf.  Collaborators included universities, schools for deaf children and key organisations in the public and voluntary sectors working with deaf children and their families.  This approach meant that there was substantial buy-in from all stakeholders who have then also helped with disseminating the guidelines to academic researchers and to people working with deaf children. 

In the current research climate Universities are being asked to provide clear plans for how users of research would benefit from proposed research applications.  This change in attitude is now firmly on the agenda as researchers in deafness are looking to how their findings can relate to education and learning.

The guidelines can be down loaded at

http://www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk/documents/GPA.pdf

Deafness Cognition and Language (DCAL) Research Centre is based at University College London. DCAL is a world renowned centre of excellence for research on BSL. The centre brings together leading Deaf and hearing researchers in the fields of sign linguistics, psychology, and neuroscience.   DCAL is funded by The Economic Social Research Council (ESRC).  http://www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's largest      organisation for funding research on economic and social issues. It supports independent, high quality research which has an impact on business, the public sector and the third sector. The ESRC's planned total expenditure in 2009/10 is £204 million. At any one time the ESRC supports over 4,000 researchers and postgraduate students in academic institutions and independent research institutes.    

http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk