Dr. Leala Holcomb
Researcher of Deaf Education
Leala is a researcher of deaf education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Leala was a former educator of deaf children in an early childhood program, which inspired the creation of Hands Land. Hands Land is a non-profit organization that promotes language play through signed rhyme and rhythm. Leala has collaborated on initiatives in Viet Nam, Hong Kong, Morocco, and Rwanda as the deaf education expert. Leala provides professional development to teachers nationally and internationally on a wide range of topics pertaining to deaf education. Leala is currently a Co-Editor of the special issue, “Translanguaging in Deaf Communities” in the Languages journal and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education journal. Leala won several awards for their work as an early career researcher and got invited to be a keynote presenter at several conferences. Leala is specifically interested in exploring deaf-centered ways of teaching and learning.
Leala is currently running a NIH grant to study multilingual/multimodal literacy in deaf students.
Click here to learn more about the research project.
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Book Chapters
Articles, Websites, Videos, and Podcast for Practitioners and Families
Awards
Promising Early Scholar Award
Association of College Educators -
Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
National Leadership on Sensory Disabilities Fellowship
Office of Special Education Programs
Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Award
Early Hearing Detection and Intervention
Heart of the Deaf Community Award
California Association of the Deaf
Early Childhood Instruction
Coming Soon
Deaf Perspectives on Communication Interventions With Deaf Children
Coming Soon