Drawn on the theoretical principles of sociocultural theory and constructivism, the aim of this multiple case study was to explore and understand the experiences of interpreting students, interpreter graduates, and pre-certified working interpreters after receiving ASL mentoring for at least 3 months to a year and to learn about the roles and…

Purpose: Best practices recommend promoting the use of the home language and allowing caregivers to choose the language(s) that they want to use with their child who is deaf or hard of hearing (DHH). We examined whether Spanish-speaking caregivers of children who are DHH receive professional recommendations on oral bilingualism that follow best…

Language acquisition involves learning not only grammatical rules and a lexicon but also what people are intending to convey with their utterances: the semantic/pragmatic component of language. In this article we separate the contributions of linguistic development and cognitive maturity to the acquisition of the semantic/pragmatic component of…

The California School for the Deaf (CSD), Fremont, is a deaf-centered bilingual program. CSD's approach to curriculum development, instructional pedagogy, and assessment integrates best practices in deaf education, bilingual education, and general education. The goals of the program are outlined in the Expected School-wide Learning Results which…

Iconicity is a property that pervades the lexicon of many sign languages, including American Sign Language (ASL). Iconic signs exhibit a motivated, nonarbitrary mapping between the form of the sign and its meaning. We investigated whether iconicity enhances semantic priming effects for ASL and whether iconic signs are recognized more quickly than…

The standard epistemology requires the use of hard science to gain knowledge and discover the truth. In contrast, Deaf epistemology relies heavily on personal testimonies, personal experiences, and personal accounts to document knowledge. In recent years, a number of deaf schools have adopted deaf-centric policies shaped by Deaf epistemology in an…

Are these students talking about their classmates? No, they are describing the Signing Avatar characters--3-D figures who appear on the EnViSci Network Web site and sign the resources and activities in American Sign Language (ASL) or Signed English (SE). During the 2003?04 school year, students in schools for the deaf and hard of hearing…

This article describes efforts at the University of California, San Diego in the Education Studies Program to develop and field-test a teacher preparation program that combines best practices in bilingual education and deaf education. The training curriculum designed for this program relies on research that finds a correlation between ASL fluency…

The attitudes of educators of the deaf and other professionals in deaf education concerning assessment of the use of American Sign Language (ASL) and other sign systems was investigated. A questionnaire was distributed to teachers in a residential school for the deaf in California. In addition to questions regarding the availability of sign…

Variation in the parts of ASL signs (i.e., phonological variation) has been explained largely by reference to the influence of the preceding and the following segments. This article examines three linguistic variables in ASL: the sign deaf; the location of a class of signs represented by the verb know; and signs produced with a 1 handshape. For…

Describes the considerable amount of work and lengthy process of passing legislation to give foreign-language credit for American sign language in California high schools. (CB)

Investigates the administration and interpretation of deaf educational policy at a regular education campus. There was a breakdown in translation of policy and a lack of articulation between the County and the District, as well as confusion regarding language use in the classroom and a lack of knowledge concerning the bilingual education of the…

This article shares the experience of implementing, enhancing, and publicizing access to the American Sign Language (ASL) video collection distributed by California Department of Education. The author discusses the issues of service to deaf and hearing-impaired people, including policy adjustments, staff training, and development of the special…

Examines California's English-Language Arts Framework, a literacy policy for schoolchildren, focusing on its effects on deaf students and suggesting that it has problems. The article highlights the mismatch between stated policy and its implementation at the teacher training level, discussing literacy policy at the preservice level. (SM)

This bibliography resulted from an investigation into the process and feasibility of developing an annotated bibliography of educational materials available in languages other than English. Materials were obtained from California, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, and the District of Columbia. Forty-two…