Purpose: Children with typical hearing and various language and cognitive challenges can struggle with processing speech in background noise. Thus, children with a language disorder (LD) are at risk for difficulty with speech recognition in poorer acoustic environments. Method: The current study compared the effects of background speech-shaped…

Purpose: One of the strategies that can be used to support speech communication in deaf children is cued speech, a visual code in which manual gestures are used as additional phonological information to supplement the acoustic and labial speech information. Cued speech has been shown to improve speech perception and phonological skills. This…

Autism and sensory-friendly events are an increasingly common feature of community life. One predictable aspect of these events is the presence of sensory havens, which serve as a respite or self-regulation zone for neurodiverse children, family, friends, and, occasionally, their service animals. When research evidence contributes to the design of…

The plastination technique produces non-toxic human tissues, ensuring their safe handling in educational settings. This investigation aimed to understand if visually impaired students profit from the use of plastinated anatomical specimens in learning the anatomy of the nervous system. For this purpose, their learning performance was compared to…

Fidget devices are often used in classrooms to help students move their bodies while attending to academic or behavioral directives. Devices range from small handheld tools such as spinners and tangle puzzles to larger full-body devices such as exercise balls. The current study provides a meta-analysis of the effects of fidget devices as academic…

Sensory substitution devices (SSDs) facilitate the detection of environmental information through enhancement of touch and/or hearing capabilities. Research has demonstrated that several tasks can be successfully completed using acoustic, vibrotactile, and multimodal devices. The suitability of a substituting modality is also mediated by the type…

Every student is unique and possesses different needs and abilities, particularly those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Alternative instruction that accommodates their distinctive needs could increase their probability of success in physical education lessons. The integration of technology in physical education classes would be a valuable…

Introduction: The use of tactile graphics promotes the full inclusion of students with visual impairments in primary and secondary school classrooms. However, without real-life experiences and specialized training, students may not have the conceptual knowledge needed to successfully participate in academic instruction and standardized…

As the internet increases in size, our body of research into what visitors prefer for website design is leaving out a growing group of people. Those with visual impairments are one of the fastest growing minorities with a disability online. This extremely under-studied group uses the internet for as many different purposes as sighted users do, but…

Academic libraries are expanding their collections to meet the technological and leisure needs of their students, but support for accessibility and curriculum can often be overlooked. At the University of North Texas Libraries, the Access Services Department utilized an internal grant to address the accessibility and curriculum gaps in its…

Sensing technologies that provide continuous, real-time information about teachers' and students' individual experiences are increasingly being applied to classroom-based research. Sensing technologies provide a possible alternative to costly and time-intensive in-person or hand-coded observations and have the potential to increase our present…

This dissertation is composed of three articles analyzing the use of sensory rooms in schools to support student need as well as its use in other settings. Sensory rooms are rooms equipped with a variety of resources, strategies, and equipment to support an individual in de-escalation. They have been implemented in various settings including…

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the impact of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions (e.g., face mask wearing and social distancing) on individuals who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (D/HH). The study aimed to describe perceptions of challenges and valued resources to inform efforts to mitigate negative consequences of the pandemic. A…

This paper offers guidance for remote communication with young children based on an interpretive study of participants engaged in an online Theatre for Early Years (TEY) event, "Up and Down." Drawing on practices used for in-person performance, the theatre-makers engaged interactively with children aged 1 and 2 and their accompanying…

Introduction: Many tactile graphics designed for individuals with visual impairments consider single factors. According to the results of our previous study, there may be interactions among scale, representation, and complexity factors. We conducted this integrative study with these three factors. Additionally, for the representation factor, we…