How to support the language and cognitive development of deaf children with Donna Jo Napoli (part 2)
- Brad
- 22 hours ago
- 1 min read
Release date: October 20, 2025
This is the second part of my episode on the cognitive health of deaf children. My guest is Donna Jo Napoli, Professor of Linguistics and Social Justice at Swarthmore College, author of fiction and science books, and co-director of Rise Videobooks. The first part focused on early language and cognitive development. This second part focusses on what Donna Jo and her colleagues are doing to improve the reading skills of deaf students. More information about Donna Jo, her books, the research we discussed, and RISE Videobooks is below.
Biography of Donna Jo Napoli
Donna Jo Napoli has a PhD from Harvard and did a postdoctoral year at MIT. She is prof. of Linguistics and Social Justice at Swarthmore College, where her research is on the linguistic analysis of spoken languages and sign languages. She is part of a team that advocates for the language rights of deaf children (mostly in medical and legal journals) and is co-director of RISEVIDEOBOOKS.ORG, a project that produces and distributes for free bimodal-bilingual videobooks for parents and teachers to share with deaf children in dozens of countries. She also writes fiction and science books for young people, from preschool through high school, with over 90 in print, including many picture books and early reader books. How to promote literacy in general is her passion – especially when it comes to those who have particular language needs that impede acquisition of literacy skills.
Links
Donna Jo Napoli
RISE Videobooks
“An approach designed to fail deaf children and their parents and how to change it”
