Studies have shown the benefits of fingerspelling on literacy skills in school-age deaf and hard-of-hearing students. This study is an observation of 20 first- and second-grade classrooms. The classroom observations were coded for fingerspelling event frequency, type, length, and whether it was chained to print. The observations showed that…

We investigated relations between kindergarten precursors and second-grade reading skills in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children, and aimed to identify subgroups based on reading skills, in order to explore early signs of later reading delays. DHH children (n = 23, M[subscript age] kindergarten = 6.25) participated from kindergarten-second…

Bilingual education programs for deaf children have long asserted that American Sign Language (ASL) is a better language of instruction English-like signing because ASL is a natural language. However, English-like signing may be a useful bridge to reading English. In the present study, we tested 32 deaf children between third and sixth grade to…

The aim of this study was to clarify whether fingerspelling provides a sophisticated mechanism that promotes the development of detailed orthographic knowledge for deaf individuals even in the absence of paralleling phonological knowledge. An intervention program comprised of various procedures chaining between fingerspelled sequences; their…

This study investigated the impact of language modality and age of acquisition on semantic fluency in American Sign Language (ASL) and English. Experiment 1 compared semantic fluency performance (e.g., name as many animals as possible in 1 min) for deaf native and early ASL signers and hearing monolingual English speakers. The results showed…

We examined the language and reading progress of 336 young DHH children in kindergarten, first and second grades. Trained assessors tested children's language, reading, and spoken and fingerspelled phonological awareness in the fall and spring of the school year. Children were divided into groups based on their auditory access and classroom…

Two lexical decision experiments are reported that investigate whether the same segmentation strategies are used for reading printed English words and fingerspelled words (in American Sign Language). Experiment 1 revealed that both deaf and hearing readers performed better when written words were segmented with respect to an orthographically…

This article describes the case of a deaf native signer of American Sign Language (ASL) with a specific language impairment (SLI). School records documented normal cognitive development but atypical language development. Data include school records; interviews with the child, his mother, and school professionals; ASL and English evaluations; and a…

Fingerspelling is an integral part of American Sign Language (ASL) and it is also an important aspect of becoming bilingual in English and ASL. Even though fingerspelling is based on English orthography, the development of fingerspelling does not parallel the development of reading in hearing children. Research reveals that deaf children may…

This response to a previous article on aerial spelling (AS) in New Zealand Sign Language applauds the original author's effort to highlight an interesting feature of deaf communication but finds some claims questionable. These include the lack of research on AS, failure to include AS in the Dictionary of New Zealand Sign Language, and imposition…

Aerial spelling is the term given for the way many people with deafness in New Zealand (NZ) manually represent letters of the alphabet. This article examines the nature and role of aerial spelling in New Zealand Sign Language, particularly that form used by older members of the NZ deaf community. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)