Evidence-Based, or Merely Published?

The importance of visual language to the lives of deaf people is well established. What is not always established is the quality of what gets written about it.

Because anyone can put information online and into print, the difference between evidence-based knowledge and opinion is not always obvious. Some question the value of American Sign Language (ASL) and/or the use of Cued American English (CAE). Others mistake visual communication for visual language. The literature is replete with information that ultimately supports or limits the opportunity for individuals who are deaf or hard-of-hearing to naturally access, acquire, and use language. Unfortunately, the rationale that is presented is often not as evidence-based as it may seem.

The reader's burden

This can make the task of preparing a presentation or a work for publication an effort in reconciling competing claims. A well-formatted citation is not evidence. A confident tone is not evidence. Even wide circulation is not evidence. As such, diligence is required to know whose expertise and credentials actually qualify them to address a given topic.

Three questions help. First: who is making the claim, and is their expertise credentialed in the specific area the claim concerns? Second: what is the claim actually resting on, peer-reviewed findings or repetition? Third: does the claim distinguish between visual communication and visual language, or does it quietly treat the two as interchangeable? Claims that fail the third question tend to fail the first two as well.

A well-formatted citation is not evidence. A confident tone is not evidence. Even wide circulation is not evidence.

Where review comes in

This is the reason VLA offers research support. Where ASL and CAE access, processing, acquisition, and use are concerned, our credentialed experts review, edit, guide, suggest, proofread, and support work for objectivity and accuracy, whether the topic is phonologic, psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic, sociolinguistic, or translation oriented.

The stakes justify the diligence. What gets published shapes what gets practiced, and what gets practiced shapes whether a deaf child's acquisition of language is treated as a default or left as a question.