Examination of American Sign Language--produced by a deaf child acquiring the language from deaf parents, and videotaped at age 13, 15, 18, and 21 months--shows conformity to many of the phonological rules operative for all languages. (Author/CFM)

Reports research on the communicative behavior of a hearing child whose parents communicated with him, from birth, in both signs and words. The child's expressive ability accelerated in both modalities and this is possibly attributable to the addition of the signed component. (PJM)

Examines from a Vygotskian perspective deaf children's private speech, i.e., speech that is spoken aloud (or visibly performed) but that is addressed to no particular person. Findings are consistent with Vygotsky's notion of the robustness of the phenomenon and its ontogenesis in early social communication. (33 references) (LR)