Visual manifestations of an object that moves from one place to another are common in sign languages. Here, we offer an overview of techniques for conveying motion of an entity based on an examination of storytelling and poetry in seven sign languages. The signer can use embodiment and/or classifiers to show translocating movement of an object, or…

Deaf professionals, whom we term Deaf Language Specialists (DLS), are frequently employed to work with children and young people who have difficulties learning sign language, but there are few accounts of this work in the literature. Through questionnaires and focus groups, 23 DLSs described their work in this area. Deductive thematic analysis was…

A Delphi consensus methodology was used to adapt the Autism Diagnostic Interview--Revised for the assessment of deaf children with suspected autism spectrum disorder. Each Autism Diagnostic Interview--Revised item was considered by a panel of nine international experts in terms of relevance and acceptability. Modifications were proposed and agreed…

The educational inclusion of deaf students in England is usually interpreted as placement in mainstream settings alongside hearing students, creating unintended pressure for assimilation to the communicative needs of hearing people. In this context, it is deaf students and their communication support staff who are left to deal with communicative…

Stefanini, Bello, Caselli, Iverson & Volterra (2009) reported that Italian 24-36 month old children use a high proportion of representational gestures to accompany their spoken responses when labelling pictures. The two studies reported here used the same naming task with (1) typically developing 24-46 month old hearing children acquiring…

It is common practice for K-12 schools to assess multilingual students' language proficiency to determine language support program placement. Because such programs can provide essential scaffolding, the policies guiding these assessments merit careful consideration. It is well accepted that quality assessments must be valid (representative of the…

From her experience of teaching a profoundly deaf child learning science with British Sign Language (BSL) as the child's first language, Sally Spicer learned methods that could be good practice for all learners. In this article, Sally Spicer shares how providing an opportunity for first-hand experience to develop knowledge and understanding of…

This study investigated whether gesturing classes (baby sign) affected parental frustration and stress, as advertised by many commercial products. The participants were 178 mother-infant dyads, divided into a gesture group (n = 89) and a non-gesture group (n = 89), based on whether they had attended baby sign classes or not. Mothers completed a…

British Sign Language has a number of regional variations. This article examines the role of residential schools in the development of sign variants. Citing data collected during interviews with members of the Lancaster and Morecambe Deaf community (who of necessity attended schools elsewhere), it explores the peer-to-peer transmission of sign…

Signed languages exploit the visual/gestural modality to create iconic expression across a wide range of basic conceptual structures in which the phonetic resources of the language are built up into an analogue of a mental image (Taub, 2001). Previously, we demonstrated a processing advantage when iconic properties of signs were made salient in a…

Deaf teachers around the world have folk models and beliefs that reflect their understanding of what deaf children need to learn in order to develop healthy identities as deaf people. In this research we report what teachers from England, the USA and Mexico have told us about using creative signing with deaf children. Themes emerging from our data…

A survey of 56 deaf adults in England and Canada found that respondents perceived themselves as members of a definable deaf community. Results also indicated the importance of shared language (American or British Sign Language) and the possible community inclusion of individuals without deafness if their attitude is one of commitment to the…

A total of 79 profoundly deaf 8- to 12-year-old children were tested for comprehension of spoken, written, and signed (Paget-Gorman Sign System, PGSS) English grammatical contrasts. It is concluded that the PGSS provides a communication channel that does not hinder language acquisition, but does not overcome the grammatical problems of deaf…

Questionnaire responses of 723 schools for severely mentally retarded, physically handicapped, communication disordered, and autistic children or nonvocal communication systems in England, Scotland, and Wales indicated a slow down in the trend of using nonvocal systems in all countries, with the Makaton Vocabulary predominating. (CL)

A review of studies in which signing or symbol use has been taught to autistic individuals suggests that these techniques can provide a means of communication and language development for the autistic, including mute and retarded children. (RH)