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This chapter focuses on academic and social outcomes of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students and how individual, family, school, and community assets and risks influence these outcomes. Five-year longitudinal data of mainstreamed DHH students show that, as a group, they achieve in the low-average range academically and have average social skills. Some achieve at grade level and are socially integrated; others have difficulty academically and socially. Individual assets include high motivation, good functional communication, and functional hearing. Family assets include having a good relationship with the child, placing a priority on schooling, and communicating with school personnel. School assets include appropriate services provided by teachers of DHH students and sign language interpreters, support for inclusion, and collaboration among school personnel. Community assets include involvement with the neighborhood and Deaf community. Parents and educators can enhance assets and minimize risks.

This chapter describes the importance of peer effects and offers new empirical evidence on their existence. Estimating peer effects is difficult. First, one must decide on the appropriate set of educational outcomes believed to be sensitive to peer attributes. Second, one must specify the relevant peer attributes. Third, and perhaps most difficult, one must contend with the fact that selection bias is rampant in the estimation of peer effects. The chapter uses a unique data set that combines data for three schools from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's College and Beyond data for the entering class of 1989, along with phonebook data identifying roommates, to implement a quasi-experimental empirical strategy aimed at measuring peer effects in academic outcomes. In particular, the chapter uses data on individual student's grades, Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, and the SAT scores of their roommates to estimate the effect of roommates' academic characteristics on an individual's grades.

This chapter introduces the concept of co-enrollment, exploring the philosophical and pragmatic foundations of this educational option of educating deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students. The intent of co-enrollment programs is to promote full membership of both DHH and hearing students in the school and classroom. Co-enrollment programs are often bilingual in sign language and spoken language and are frequently co-taught by a general education teacher and a teacher of DHH students. The scant research on co-enrollment classrooms indicates that the social outcomes are positive, but academic and language proficiency outcomes are not yet established. Teachers, parents, and students all perceive co-enrollment programs positively. Challenges include the time required for students and teachers to master a second language and the time and effort required to establish and maintain teacher partnerships.

This chapter discusses similarities and differences among the co-enrollment programs described in this volume. In doing so, it emphasizes the diversity among deaf learners and the concomitant difficulty of a “one size fits all” approach to co-enrollment programs as well as to deaf education at large. The programs described in this book thus understandably are also diverse in their approach to programming and to communication, in particular. For example, many encourage flexible use of spoken and sign modalities to encourage communication between DHH students, their hearing peers, and their classroom teachers. Others emphasize spoken language or sign language. Several programs include multi-grade classrooms, allowing DHH students to benefit socially and academically from active engagement in the classroom, and some report positive social and academic outcomes. Most programs follow a general education curriculum; all emphasize collaboration among staff as the key to success.

This chapter aims to provide a comprehensive perspective on human behavior by studying the role of the distal environment on developmental processes. Social class, or more specifically socioeconomic status, is an all-encompassing context that has great significance in engulfing human phenomena. This chapter first reviews extant psychological literature on the deleterious effects of low social class on development and presents three studies as cases in point, demonstrating the significant impact of the context and contextual change on behavior. Kağıtçıbaşı’s theory of family change proposes three models of family: family of interdependence, family of independence, and family of emotional interdependence. Parenting, however, directly reflects family characteristics. Thus family change theory has led to a theory of the autonomous-related self. The chapter also presents research illustrating the impact of the objective environment and in particular the detrimental effects of low socioeconomic status on various developmental, social, and academic outcomes of Turkish samples.

Various studies have highlighted that severe to profound deafness in children affects the acquisition and mastering of spoken language. Data collected on children with cochlear implants have shown contrasting results and large individual variability in linguistic proficiency and in literacy. Particular weakness has been demonstrated in mastering morphosyntactic aspects as well as in reading and writing. The chapter offers an overview of recent studies that analyzed the role of specific parameters (i.e., age at diagnosis, age at implant activation, family and school environment, and exposure to sign language) in determining language and academic outcomes. The chapter then describes the Italian educational contexts in which deaf children can be enrolled and provides examples of visually grounded multimedia environments developed in Italy to enhance deaf students’ literacy.