Deaf Experience, Deaf Expression (DXDX)

How do social and linguistic experiences affect the social and emotional well-being of young people with hearing loss?

This long-term project collects interviews about the lived experiences of d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing people of all ages, their families, and related professionals. They will be compiled to create a publicly-available audio-video collection of interviews and conversations with all types of people with hearing loss. The collection will be useful for parents and educators to have first-hand accounts of the possible outcomes of the tough decisions they have to make about deaf children's communication and education. ​

Participate

Want to be interviewed about your experiences?  Email us for info

Meet the team

Meet the dozens of students and colleagues involved with this project

Project Timeline

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Project News

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• Fall 2023+: Interview related professionals. Continue building database beta. 
• Fall 2022-Summer 2023: Interviewed people with adult-onset hearing loss, their families and allies. Built database structure.
• Summer 2022: Awarded Community Engagement Grant from OSU College of Arts & Sciences to interview more people.
• Fall 2021-Summer 2023: Interviewed teens/tweens with hearing loss, their parents and siblings/friends.
• Summer 2021: Awarded Community Engagement Grant from OSU College of Arts & Sciences to interview teens and parents over the next school year.
• Spring 2021: Madison Pearson completed her master's thesis on the first results from her survey of adults with early hearing loss.
• Spring/Summer 2021: Zoom interviews of adults with early hearing loss.
• Spring 2021: Undergrads from Dr. Freeman's Deaf Communication & Education class join the team.
• Summer 2020: Awarded OSU College of Arts & Sciences Research Seed Grant to interview adults with early hearing loss.
• Spring/Summer 2020: Grad student Madison Pearson created and administered the Social experience and hearing loss survey to adults with early hearing loss and their families.

Papers & Presentations

 (*student authors)

• *Smith, B. & Freeman, V. (to appear 2024, December). Deaf interaction with law enforcement: A survey approach. Poster, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), Seattle, WA.
• *Hedge, M., Glade, R., & Freeman, V. (2024, October). Identifying social determinants of hearing health using thematic analysis. Poster, Oklahoma Speech-Language-Hearing Association (OSHA), Stillwater, OK.
• *Smith, B. & Freeman, V. (2024, October). Examining interactions with law enforcement officers and the Deaf community. Poster, Oklahoma Speech-Language-Hearing Association (OSHA), Stillwater, OK.
• *Hedge, M., *Robinson, L., *Ferguson, M., & *Avance, L. (2024, April). The Deaf Experience, Deaf Expression Project and how it is tied to the social determinants of health using thematic analysis. Poster, Undergraduate Research Symposium, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK.
• *Damico, M. (2024, April). How do social and linguistic experiences affect the social and emotional well-being of young people with hearing loss? Poster, Freshman Research Scholars Symposium, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK.
• *Smith, B., *Adams, G., & Freeman, V. (2024, February). Collecting and analyzing interviews with deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Poster, Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Association (TSHA), Fort Worth, TX. 
• *Olender, C., *Landua, J., Glade, R., & Freeman, V. (2023, October). Themes in the DXDX corpus. Poster, Oklahoma Speech-Language-Hearing Association (OSHA), Edmond, OK. 
• *Adams, G. & Freeman, V. (2023, October). Collecting interviews of deaf and hard of hearing lived experiences. Poster, Oklahoma Speech-Language-Hearing Association (OSHA), Edmond, OK. 
• *Smith, B., *Adams, G., & Freeman, V. (2023, October). Creating and analyzing interview questions for the DXDX Project. Poster, Oklahoma Speech-Language-Hearing Association (OSHA), Edmond, OK. 
• *Bilger, J. & *Kannegiesser, L. (2023, October). Demographics of those interviewed through the Deaf Experience & Deaf Expression Project. Poster, Oklahoma Speech-Language-Hearing Association (OSHA), Edmond, OK. 
• *Smith, B., *Adams, G., & *Olender, C. (2023, April).Collecting interviews of Deaf and hard of hearing lived experiences. Poster, Undergraduate Research Symposium, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK. [abstract]
• *Kannegiesser, L. & *Bilger, J. (2023, April). Demographics of those interviewed through the Deaf Experience & Deaf Expression Project. Poster, Undergraduate Research Symposium, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK. [abstract]
• *Meyer, T. (2022, October). Hearing loss awareness. Invited talk, Stephen Ministries, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, Stillwater, OK.
• *Meyer, T. & Freeman, V. (2022, October). Situational loss of communication for individuals with hearing loss. Poster, Oklahoma Speech-Language-Hearing Association (OSHA), Norman, OK.
• *Smith, B., *Vang, M., & Freeman, V. (2022, October). Building the Deaf Experience/Deaf Expression (DXDX) Project. Poster, Oklahoma Speech-Language-Hearing Association (OSHA), Norman, OK.
• *Smith, B. & *Vang, M. (2022, April). Building the Deaf Experience, Deaf Expression (DXDX) Project. Poster, Undergraduate Research Symposium, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK.
• Freeman, V., *Pearson, M., *Smith, B., *Pascale, E., *Fitzsimons, T., *Pascual, L., *Patterson, L., & *Unkefer, C. (2021, November). Introducing the Deaf Experience/Deaf Expression (DXDX) Project. Poster, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), Washington, DC/Online. [audio tour]
• Freeman, V., *Pearson, M., *Smith, B., *Pascale, E., *Fitzsimons, T., *Pascual, L., *Patterson, L., *Unkefer, C., & *Shannon, K. (2021, October). The Deaf Experience, Deaf Expression (DXDX) Project. Flash talk, Oklahoma Speech-Language-Hearing Association (OSHA), Online. 
• *Pearson, M. (2021, June). Tips for interviewing people with hearing loss over Zoom. Acoustical Society of America (ASA), Online.
• Freeman, V. (2021, May). The Deaf Experience, Deaf Expression (DXDX) Project. Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) Central Oklahoma Chapter, Online.
• *Pearson, M. (2021, April). A multifactor comparison of pragmatics, social relationships, and discrimination among individuals with hearing loss. Minnesota Speech-Language-Hearing Association (MNSHA), Online.
• *Pearson, M. (2021). A multifactor comparison of pragmatics, social relationships, and discrimination among individuals with hearing loss. Master's thesis, Oklahoma State University. 

Funding

OSU College of Arts and Sciences:

• Advancing Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity (AURCA), 2021–
• Experiences of adult-onset hearing loss and allies: A video corpus, Community Engagement Grant, 2022–23
• Socio-linguistic experiences of children with hearing loss and their families: A video corpus, Community Engagement Grant, 2021–22
• Deaf Communication Corpus Pilot, Research Seed Grant, 2020–21

People & Partners

Collaborators:

• Rachel Glade (U. Arkansas): Thematic Analysis Supervisor
• Megan Macken (OSU Library): Database Project Manager

Students: Meet the team
Community Partners: ​Meet our partners here

Student Corner

Want to get involved? You can volunteer in the lab or work on DXDX for honors or research credit, often for as little as 2-3 hours per week. There are a variety of tasks and ways to contribute, e.g.:

• Interviewing: Conduct interviews (usually paired with another student)
• Recruiting: Gather contact info, email potential participants, post flyers
• Scheduling: Keep track of everyone's availability, update appointment calendar, email participants
• Transcribing/Captioning: Edit computer-generated transcripts
• Annotating: Tag portions of recorded interviews by topic, demographics, quotes
• Video editing: Extract clips, crop participants, blur names/faces, stitch topics together
• Social media: Make images, write updates, post clips, link up with related groups
• Thematic analysis: Look for patterns in the content of the interviews, e.g. on a chosen topic or interview question; look for relationships between experiences and opinions
• Linguistic analysis: Linguistics students may use the corpus for a variety of research questions (see Dr. Freeman)
• Database management: Create entries and maintain the collection of searchable interview clips
• Computer programming: Help create the database, GUI, tagging system, etc.
• Lab/project management: Keeping track of people, completed tasks, data organization, protocols, etc.
• Marketing: Create educational/promotional (mostly digital) materials, connect with media, publicize the project

Data and materials:

• Hour-long video-recorded Zoom interviews of adults with early hearing loss.
  • As of 2021: 42 adults with severe-profound HL since childhood (28 in speech + 16 in ASL, including 2 interviewed in both). Most middle-age; some cochlear implants; from all over USA.
  • In progress 2022-2023: teenagers with HL and their parents (separately, mostly in speech).
• Time-stamped annotations for topic and quotes for some videos (ongoing).
• Video clips of quotes (ongoing).
• Demographics of participants (age, region, hearing loss severity, age of diagnosis, assistive devices, language use, type of schooling, etc.)
• Interview scripts, consent and demographic questions in Qualtrics, flyers, IRB forms, etc.
• See also: Student Corner on the Social experience and hearing loss survey page.

Project ideas:

• Pick an interview question/topic, sort and summarize responses. Example hot topics from adults with early HL:
  • Finding your place, social support growing up
  • Trouble understanding in school, accommodations
  • Misconceptions about HL
  • Advocacy
  • Speech vs sign language for deaf kids
  • Cochlear implants (esp. for infants)
  • Advice for parents
• Compile advice for parents, teachers, healthcare workers, etc. about hot topics into informative videos, pamphlets, or webpages. 
• Pick a type of participant (by demographics or experience) and look for common themes across their experiences or opinions.
• Compare a subset of experiences between types of participants (e.g., bullying in school between kids with severe vs. mild loss, comfort with socialization between kids who went to different types of schools or used speech vs sign).
• ... So many possibilities -- What else are you interested in?

Browse the project website and email Dr. Freeman if you're interested.