Way to go! Ph.D. student wins fellowship to research how ASL boosts navigational skills

Melody Schwenk, a doctoral candidate in the Ph.D. in Educational Neuroscience (PEN) program, has been named a 2025 National Academy of Education (NAEd)/Spencer Dissertation Fellow. The award — which provides a $27,500 stipend — will support her research exploring how American Sign Language fluency sharpens spatial reasoning skills, such as wayfinding, mental rotation, and perspective-taking.

For Schwenk, who has never needed a map to get around, it is fascinating that some of her friends constantly rely on GPS, even to find places they have visited hundreds of times. She noticed a pattern: Fluent ASL signers, both deaf and hearing, often have incredible navigational skills like her. Non-fluent signers — even deaf people — seem to have more difficulty figuring out which way to go.

When Schwenk arrived at the Action & Brain Lab, directed by her advisor Dr. Lorna Quandt, she learned that no one had ever really looked into why some people excel at navigating and others struggle. “I just didn’t have any answers other than the limited work done in this area! I needed to know,” Schwenk says.

Five years later, she is now heading into the final year of her Ph.D. program, and working on a study that tests spatial cognition skills in 65 adults divided into five categories: Deaf fluent signers, hearing fluent signers, deaf non-fluent signers, hearing non-fluent signers, and hearing non-signers. She gives subjects a 5×5 grid and assigns them a perspective to take. Then they press arrow keys to show how they move toward a stop sign pictured on the grid.

Simultaneously, Schwenk is collecting EEG (electroencephalogram) data to measure brain activity in these subjects. Schwenk is looking specifically for signs of mental preparation and motor stimulation, as well as coordination between frontal executive regions and posterior spatial-processing areas.

“In simple terms, this research explores whether being fluent in ASL can help Deaf students develop stronger spatial reasoning skills, which are critical for success in school and life, especially in math and science,” Schwenk says. “If the study provides evidence that supports this link, it means ASL is more than just a language. It’s a means to improve a student’s ability to think about and understand the world spatially.”

These findings could be used to create teaching methods and curricula that leverage the visual aspects of ASL, adds Schwenk, who hopes that will lead to greater academic achievement for the Deaf community.

Schwenk thinks about how this approach could have helped her as a student. Although she started out at a school for the Deaf, where she learned ASL, she was moved into a mainstream school. “I had age-appropriate ASL fluency, but didn’t have ongoing ASL,” she says. “I didn’t have [anyone] showing me how to use my environment and intuitive skills to help me learn better.”

Receiving the NAEd/Spencer Fellowship is a sign to Schwenk that work spotlighting Deaf experiences is valued. “It means someone is willing to invest in research that is, frankly, a bit unruly — asking how language, hearing status, and our environment shape not just what we know, but how we navigate the world,” she says. “Ultimately, this award boosts my work by allowing me to turn complex research into something that matters, not just for other researchers, but for classrooms and communities.”

According to the National Academy of Education, which manages the fellowship with financial support from the Spencer Foundation, there were over 400 scholars vying for 35 fellowships this year.

“This is a highly competitive award supporting the most promising educational research in the country. To have this awarded to a Gallaudet student shows that we truly are cultivating transformational research here on campus,” says Quandt, who notes that Schwenk’s work has previously received several other awards and accolades, including the NIH F31 Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Fellowship. “I am also thrilled to see that both federal and private funding bodies recognize the value of understanding more about how cognition and language intersect — a topic that holds so much potential for education.”

Schwenk credits her experiences at Gallaudet for helping her land on this topic. “Gallaudet provided me with new opportunities, sparking my curiosity,” she says. “As I learned more, I needed to continue learning more.”