Environmental underreporting in deaf education: a scoping review and proposal

Abstract

This scoping review examined which modifiable school and classroom factors dually supported mathematics and literacy development in deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Searches across ERIC, PsycINFO, and Scopus yielded 1,468 records, with 76 advancing to full-text screening. Of these, 35 were excluded due to not formally analyzing an environmental factor in relation to academic outcomes, revealing a notable gap in the reporting of measurable academic environmental factors across the field. Studies were also required to reflect the contemporary policy landscape following a 2010 shift in educational language policy; three additional studies meeting all other criteria were excluded on this basis. Three studies were included in the final review, associating long-term enrollment in ASL-English bilingual programs with stronger mathematics and literacy outcomes, though no isolated specific classroom-level mechanisms were identified. We introduce the Classroom Linguistic and Environmental Access Record (CLEAR), a proposed framework for more consistent environmental reporting.