Story dramas: an exploratory study toward a deaf-led arts-integration model.
Joanne Weber, Jah-Amaka Enwedo, Amel Benkohila and 3 others
PMID 42229544WHAT IT FOUND
Instructors in one bimodal bilingual deaf preschool classroom reported children used story vocabulary during play, snack, and gym.
They also described more expressive signing, turn taking, and student leadership.
Key findings
01Instructors reported that children used story vocabulary during free play, gym, lunch, and snack time, and that all students were more expressive.
02Instructors said the drama activities let them observe students' visual language more naturally and informally assess comprehension and language development.
03Instructors reported more cohesive peer interaction, turn-taking, and students wanting to lead story drama activities.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study was exploratory and qualitative, so it produced themes and instructor reports rather than measured effects. It used one classroom, a small deaf-led team, and a small number of children. The paper reports seven children as the study focus, but says five students were enrolled in the classroom. Implementation fidelity was not assessed. The researcher was the only ASL-fluent member of the research team who confirmed coding, and no additional coders were involved. The study did not report formal outcome measures for children, so observed changes cannot be treated as proven effects.
Declared interests
Funding was named as Social Sciences Humanities Research Council. The supplied text does not state author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that story drama alone improved language, social skills, attention, or agency. The activities also included ASL instruction, props, movement, music, gestures, interdisciplinary explorations, and play, and the study cannot separate the contribution of any single component.