The national policy in deaf education in Mainland China primarily focuses on oral/aural instruction and hearing rehabilitation. The curriculum in primary grades is specifically structured on speech and hearing skills for language development. But there is little evidence that documents what early literacy instruction looks like or how teachers…

In the Netherlands, many educators and care providers working at special schools for children with severe speech and language impairments (SSLI) use sign-supported Dutch (SSD) to facilitate communication. Anecdotal experiences suggest positive results, but empirical evidence is lacking. In this multiple case study the changes that occur in the way…

The study compared comprehension of American Sign Language (ASL) between 12 deaf subjects in a program using Signing Exact English (SEE-2) and 14 deaf subjects in a residential program using Signed English, Pidgin Signed English, and ASL. Students exposed to SEE-2 could comprehend ASL as well as residential school peers. (Author/DB)

A four-year study explored face-to-face English competence of five students (ages 7-12) with deafness participating in a study of teachers' use of English-based signing. Grammatical forms similar in English and American Sign Language were initially more readily produced when tested for in English and students showed consistently higher attainment…

Responses of 162 deaf adults to an interview survey indicated findings including that sign language should be learned at an early age, before speech; that language should be acquired bilingually; and that American Sign Language and English signs should form the basis of the two languages. (Author)

Six autistic children were trained to use their sign repertoire to make spontaneous requests of adults. Training consisted of imitative prompting, fading, and differential reinforcement, with aspects of incidental teaching. Ss displayed increased rate and variety of spontaneous sign requests and generalization of spontaneity across different…

The study attempted to determine whether children and adults perceive different amounts of translucency in signs drawn from early sign teaching lexicons and representing three different semantic classes. Results indicate that four- and seven-year-old children and adults perceive signs representing action as more translucent than signs representing…

An 11-year-old nonverbal boy diagnosed autistic was trained to communicate wants and needs with manual signs. Sign training in the corner of the classroom had no effect on generalization or maladaptive responses, while training in the natural setting was functionally related both to use of signs across the school day and dramatic reductions in…

Immediate and one-day posttest measures were obtained from 20 nonhandicapped seven and eight year olds in a paired-associate transfer of training task using manual signs and Bliss symbols (often used with non-speaking persons). Results showed no overall difference between signs and symbols in number of correct responses on either the immediate or…

During a six-month program, the effect of signing on speech articulation in an autistic eight-year-old boy was investigated using a three stage probe technique. Articulation improved clinically and statistically both across probes and within probes, where better articulation occurred when sounds were accompanied by signs. (Author)

Twenty-four deaf children (6 to 10 years old) were individually administered a task in which possession of accumulating candy rewards was made contingent upon the child stopping further accumulation. Ss, who under instruction periodically signed statements about the goodness of the reward, waited significantly longer before terminating the waiting…

Results of a study involving 14 three- to 11-year-olds with language impairments revealed that, for both functor acquisition and functor recall, speech and sign training was superior to speech training. Type of functor trained was also important, with prepositions faring better than pronouns. (Author/CL)

The gap between oral and manual production of the 159 profoundly deaf children in total communication programs indicated that spoken English did not develop simultaneously with manually coded English and that Ss educated in programs using manually coded English did not develop competence with early developing English syntax faster than those not…

Two elementary hearing impaired students showed their ability to demonstrate which of several languages and/or systems was the most beneficial to them as an instructional communication tool. Findings had implications for teachers wishing to match language of instruction to the child's language preferences. (Author/CL)

Two experiments involving a seven-year-old trainable developmentally retarded boy demonstrated the effectiveness of an integrative language training model on the S's functional use of sign language. The model relied on delay and incidental teaching. (CL)