Support for baby signing (BS) with hearing infants tends to converge toward three camps or positions. Those who advocate BS to advance infant language, literacy, behavioral, and cognitive development rely heavily on anecdotal evidence and social media to support their claims. Those who advocate BS as an introduction to another language, such as…

In order to better evaluate bilingualism in deaf children, this study examined whether observers (N=37) from different backgrounds would agree on deaf children's use of either American Sign Language (ASL) or English signing. Observers represented a range of background experience in a variety of schools and programs; 6 were deaf; 31 were hearing;…

In this paper the author takes a positive not a negative view of sign language. It is the center of attention, not as an object of interest to the specialist in language, but as the central feature in the complex sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic system that makes the deaf person part of general American culture and at the same time part of a…

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…

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)

Discusses a study of differences in nonliteral language use among deaf women, women who could hear, and women who could hear and who used sign language. Subjects told stories orally and in sign to children of 4 and 10 years. Deaf mothers' nonliteral content was higher, whereas hearing mothers' stories were longer. (Author/GH)

To assess competency in American Sign Language (ASL) and manually coded English (MCE), 219 National Technical Institute for the Deaf students, judged to be skilled signers, viewed videotaped stories, one in ASL and one in MCE, followed by true/false questions in the same language as the story. (Author/PHR)

Charles A. Ferguson's concept of "diglossia" (1959, 1964) is used in analyzing sign language. As in Haitian Creole or Swiss German, "two or more varieties" of sign language are "used by the same speakers under different conditions"--these are here called "High" (H) sign language and "Low" (L) sign language. H sign language is formally taught…

This review of research on language development of hearing children of deaf parents identified three areas of focus: (1) oral language development; (2) sign language development; and (3) mode of communication--oral and/or manual. Areas of future study are suggested. (Author/DB)

As most deaf individuals experience two languages (American Sign Language, English) and three modalities (sign, speech, print), this article describes code variations and adaptations in particular situations at a school for the deaf. Most language was mixed in both code and mode; such mixing was seen to be a strategy which uniquely adapts…