Claire L. Ramsey

Claire L Ramsey formerly worked at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska, and then took a professorship at the University of California, San Diego. Her works include books, articles, and contributions to other books as well.

She worked on three books: Deaf Children in Public Schools, The People Who Spell, and Deaf Students as Reader and Writers: A Mixed-mode Research Approach.

Deaf Children in Public Schools is part of a series called Sociolinguistic in deaf communities. This is the only book within the series that Claire L Ramsey wrote herself. This book deals with three Deaf children that are in the second grade. Since a lot of Deaf students are becoming mainstreamed she wanted to observe these three children in different settings, that of Deaf classes and general education classes. Both setting were educational but the inclusive education classes were there strictly there because of the law. In the inclusive classes they did not have goals for these deaf students. Studies show that Deaf and Hard of Hearing students learn better when they were in the Deaf classroom. This is because they use their own language and the environment was more comfortable

The People Who Spell deals with the Escuela Nacional pare Sorodundos (Mexican National School for the Deaf). This school was opened in the 1860s because Mexico wanted to educate their Deaf citizens. Although they did not use Lengua De Senas Mexicana which translate to mean Mexican Sign Language, but they do pride themselves on using el deletreo, LSM fingerspelling. But, because of the oral approach this school had to close its doors in the 1970s. The book interviews students that had attended this Mexican School for the Deaf and they tell about their experiences at school. One lady that was interviewed Maria de los angeles Beodlla explains that when she was going to school her classmates and her were more cultured and educated then today's Deaf people in Mexico. Claire Ramsey brought all the stories together and found a common disappointment on how these students view modern day Mexico and how it has failed their Deaf citizens.

Deaf Students as Reader and Writers: A Mixed-mode Research Approach was co-written by Carol Padden. In this book they focus on 135 children's reading and writing skill. All of these 135 students are all Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Of these students 83 attend a residential school for the Deaf, and the other 52 students attend public school that have the Deaf and Hard of Hearing program. She observed these students because she wanted to find out if these students learned how to read and write better in a residential school or public school. She found that there are other factors to contribute to a child learning how to read and write such as if these Deaf students had Deaf parents. Students with families like that tended to attend the residential schools. Also age detection, and the length of time that they attended school.

Claire L Ramsey worked on two articles they were "Classroom Discourse Practices of a Deaf Teacher Using American Sign Language", and "Ninos Milagrizados: Language Attitudes, Deaf Education, and Miracle Cures in Mexico".

In the article "Classroom Discourse Practices of a Deaf Teacher Using American Sign Language" she discusses an experienced Deaf teacher. This teacher uses American Sign Language as a way of communication at the place she works at. This woman has been working for about thirty five years and she is a native signer as well. She uses her signs in her fifth grade classroom. Since she is experienced and flunkey in ASL she has come up with many different strategies that are effective within her classroom. Her strategies has help her students become more interactive in school.

In "Ninos Milagrizados: Language Attitudes, Deaf Education, and Miracle Cures in Mexico" she learns about the different types of cures they use on their Deaf children in Mexico. In the article it says that many causes of deafness is related to the culture that the child has grown up in. In Mexico because they are trying to cure deafness they say that the child needs to be treated right away or rehabilitated. In Mexico they are trying to make these children part of the community. They want these children to be a part of the hearing society that they live in.

She has worked editing other peoples work as well. Works including "Pinky Extension and Eye Gaze", "Storytelling and conversation: Discourse in Deaf Communities", "Language acquisition by eye", and "Turn-Taking, Fingerspelling, and Contact in Sign Language".

"Pinky Extension and Eye Gaze" written by Ceil Lucas was the fourth in the series of The Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities. Ceil Lucas is a Professor of Linguistics in the Department of Linguistics at Gallaudet University. Claire L Ramsey participate by being on the Editorial Advisory Board. This book explores the language dynamics among Deaf people. They did research on the six major sociolinguistic areas. This includes variation with a sound, explanation of ASL phonological characteristics, language in education, discourse analysis, learning a second language, and lastly language attitudes.

The next book called Storytelling and Conversation: Discourse in Deaf Communities she was again on the Editorial Advisory Board. Also, this next book was the fifth volume in the series Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities. The book explores that discourse analysis of Sign Language in countries such as Bali, Italy, England, and the United States. The study focuses on the internal and external context. Within the internal context for example they focused on how the signer decides how to structure his sign in order to story tell, and also how effects and comments are used in conversations through text. For external context they observed how Bali Deaf people and sign language are integrated into their communities, also how language mixes between deaf parents and their hearing children . In this book they wanted to observe the internal and external context together.

Again being part of the Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities series she on the Editorial Advisory Board. This book titled Turn-Taking, Fingerspelling, and Contact in Sign Language is the eighth in its series. This book focuses on Sign Language that international Deaf people used in their communities. They also focused on how men and women finger spell differently. For this book they visited the Flemish Deaf community and observed that the people in the community were both Deaf and hearing. They found that in this community that the signers tend to map certain concepts with their body and hands. This allows the signer to engulf themselves completely in their strategies. They also observed the Spanish bilingual community in Barcelona.

And the last article she contributed work to was "Language acquisition by eye" written by Charlene Chamberlain, Jill Patterson Morford, Rachel I. Mayberry. They discuss in this article how Deaf children learn to read. In the article we learn that knowledge of specific ASL structure correlates to reading achievement. Children that perform better on reading tests are those who have the ability to write down words that are fingerspelled to them and then are able to translate them into signs. This is usually see in children that grew up learning Sign Language.