Upcoming Talk – Tuesday February 25th @ 1-2pm. Dr Kate Rowley: ‘Reframing Deafness: Not Hearing Loss but Deaf Gain’

Hello all,

We are excited to welcome you to the next event in the UCL Health Communication Network Research Seminar Series.

Next Event: Tuesday 25^th February. 1-2pm
Location: UCL’s IOE. 20 Bedford Way, Room 834

Zoom Link for hybrid attendance: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/93281768433?pwd=t930xwrlgVFfQ4y7Fzhsjrb34n82Hb.1

We are delighted to present our next speaker, Dr. Kate Rowley.

Dr Kate Rowley is a deaf, psycholinguist based as a lecturer at University College London (UCL). Kate is also the current Deputy Director of the Deafness, Cognition, and Language Research Centre (DCAL). Her research focuses mainly on the language and literacy of deaf children and adults across all ages. Recently, she managed a large-scale research project looking at the relationship between BSL (British Sign Language) comprehension skills and English reading proficiency in deaf children between the ages of 4 and 18. She is currently a co-investigator on a longitudinal study that explores factors influencing literacy in deaf children between the ages of 8 and 11 years. Kate has also done much research into sociolinguistics, particularly language attitudes within the British, Deaf Community.

The talk is titled: ‘Reframing Deafness: Not Hearing Loss but Deaf Gain’ 

Abstract: “Deafness is often described by the problems associated with it and along with it, stigmatic language is used to describe deaf and hard-of-hearing people. In this talk, I will discuss how we can shift from seeing deafness as a deficit to seeing deafness as something that can be positive. A growing number of studies, including studies carried out by researchers at the Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL), where I am based, show that visual, language and cognitive processing in deaf people can differ to hearing people and not necessarily in negative ways. For example, reading research on deaf adults have demonstrated that deaf people read faster and more accurately than hearing people, as they are able to process visual information more efficiently. This reframing is important, particularly to families of newly identified babies. The language we use to let families know their child is deaf can have a huge impact on how they react to this news.”

We look forward to seeing you there!

The UCL Health Communication Network Team

Emma, Andrea, Zsófia, and Sinéad