Reviews research on "homesign" systems, i.e., the gestural communication of deaf individuals who do not learn a spoken language and who are not exposed to a signed language. The article touches on how iconicity affects language structure and use, the role of input in language development, and the nature of the critical period for…

In this case study of a young deaf child, his mother relates his progress in language acquisition through the use of signs, finger spelling, speechreading, and auditory training. Other members of the child's family are deaf and the child received training at the Gallaudet preschool from the age of 30 months. The author believes that there are…

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)

A longitudinal study of the effect of mothers' communication modes on the language development of children (N=149) with severe or profound hearing loss indicated that children whose mothers used oral communication had higher scores on measures of spoken language, whereas children whose mothers used manual communication had higher scores on…

The feedback model of maternal language indicates that maternal language development is tailored to child feedback. The conversational model indicates that adjustment in mothers' speech occurs before the onset of child language. In order to verify the validity of these models, the language of mothers of six hearing and six deaf 13- to…

Evaluates a comprehensive intervention program for deaf children under age three in Vancouver, British Columbia. Twelve subjects were compared with a matched sample of children undergoing less-systematic intervention. Results indicated more developmentally mature communication and higher quality interaction in families who had received…

A study examined young children's use of the Mandarin "jiu" in its adverbial form in conditional sentences. The language corpus included: (1) spontaneous speech samples of 66 children aged 4, 5, 6, and 7 years in 20 Taiwan locations and (2) story repetitions by 461 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds in 22 locations. The data indicate that children…

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)

This report is a cross-linguistic study that compares the sequence of emergence of semantic relations in English with the sequence of emergence of these relations in the acquisition of American Sign Language. American Sign Language (ASL) differs from English in modality (it is a visual-gesture language rather than an auditory-vocal one) and in the…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 27 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: facilitation of language development in disadvantaged preschool children; auditory-visual discrimination skills, language performance, and development of manual…