If I were given that task I'd make contact with someone at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) - at Rochester Institute of Technology. I was a student there a zillion or more years ago and the NTID was held in high regard then - and had grown substantially since then. I would be willing to bet that many of the students at RIT (regardless of hearing abilities) have probably published papers on that very subject. You might as well take some time to read the things that are already known, so to speak.