Describes a study that analyzed and described humorous productions of deaf children and the reaction of other deaf children to those productions. One finding was that primarily verbal humor was appreciated more by older children with hearing parents; humor characterized by sign complexity, by children with deaf parents. (SED)

Examines whether early simultaneous bilingual language exposure causes children to be language delayed or confused. Cites research suggesting normal and parallel linguistic development occurs in each language in young children and young children's dual language developments are similar to monolingual language acquisition. Research on simultaneous…

Analysis of the communicative skills of a nine-year-old deaf boy with minimal schooling showed pantomiming and gestures to be his major mode of communication. Certain semantic patterns prevailed. Use of left or right hand also had semantic correlates. Formal and idiosynacratic signs were discovered in the boy's vocabulary. (Author/PJM)

Reports on research into the early semantic-syntactic utterances of deaf children as compared to those of learning children. It is suggested that differences in acquisition patterns may be attributable to the pedagogical nature of deaf language acquisition. (Author/AM)

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)

Replication of a study that showed that deaf 15- to 18-year- olds could accurately identify a significant number of isolated signs presented well out in peripheral vision found that 8- to 12-year-olds could also identify such signs, although results showed a significant effect of age on performance. (Author/CB)

Explores the acquisition of productive verbs and (spatial) agreement of American Sign Language (ASL) in the signing of two deaf children with hearing parents. The children, observed at two ages, initially showed markedly different developmental trends. Then their grammatical development converged, and they were able to suit ASL to the kind of…

Examines arguments that language comes from innate, abstract knowledge of universal grammar that signers use to create new grammatical features. (12 references) (CK)

Longitudinal study of a deaf child's (with deaf signing and speaking parents) speech functions revealed that the child, before age three, rarely attempted speech imitation. By age five, the child had acquired new words through speechreading and had adjusted language modes to listener needs for flexible communication, and speech behavior assumed…

Reports on a study which followed the language development of a hearing son of deaf parents from his seventeenth month to twenty-third month. Various aspects of the child's language acquisition in sign and speech are described, as is his early ability to alternate languages (sign and speech) according to addressee. (SED)

Describes code shifting study in communicative behavior of hearing child interacting with deaf child and mother, both of whom signed. Hearing child knew signing, but did not sign at home. Although communication change occurred, code shifting was influenced more by motivational variables and by hearing child's own flexibility with language than by…

Reports on an investigation into the gestural repertoire of a deaf child raised in an oral environment. (AM)

Observation of severely to profoundly deaf four- to nine-year-olds (N=24) producing three types of multi-morphemic classifier predicates in American Sign Language showed that handshape production was influenced both by morphological and syntactic complexity, while handshape errors were not based on anatomical complexity alone. (26 references)…

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)