The efficacy of employing linguistic elements (verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc.) arranged in systematic combination matrices on the development of expressive verb-noun phrase usage was demonstrated when two of three moderately to severely handicapped six- and seven-year-old students showed gains in trained and novel responses. (CL)

This study examined keyword signing (KWS), a communication approach used with nonspeaking individuals. Acoustic measures and judgments of 20 adult listeners were used to evaluate KWS and Spoken-Only narratives. KWS narratives were produced with a slower articulation rate, because of increased pause and speech segment duration and increased pause…

The manual teaches SignFont, a written form of sign language. Following a brief introduction, the first of three major sections describes the SignFont alphabet, structured according to the parts of every sign that is written (handshape, action area, location, movement). The second section discusses in greater detail how the SignFont characters are…

The study coded the communicative expressions (using manually coded English) of five 3-year-old deaf children while interacting with their mothers. A large proportion of the expressions consisted of social or imperative intentions while a much smaller proportion were used for heuristic or informational purposes. (Author/DB)

Examines the acquisition of conditional sentences in American Sign Language (which entail the use of both manual signs and grammaticized nonmanual facial expressions) by deaf children. The results indicate that children first acquire manual conditional signs before they employ obligatory grammaticized facial expressions, and also acquire manual…

Examines whether manually coded English (MCE) sign language systems are learnable. Reading achievement and expressive English skills of deaf students educated using only a MCE sign system were examined. Deaf students had expressive English skills comparable to hearing students in respect to syntactical and lexical skills but were deficient in…

The purposes of the study involving four severely handicapped students (11 to 16 years old) were to examine whether the acquisition of instruction- following behavior is facilitated by the presentation of manual signs with verbal instructions and whether manual and verbal expressive abilities are acquired as an indirect result of receptive…

Four nonverbal autistic children (10-15 years old) were taught expressive sign labels for common objects, using a training procedure that consisted of prompting, fading, and stimulus rotation. (Author/BD)

Total communication procedures were used with three severely mentally retarded children (mental ages 2 to 4) to examine the effects of receptive speech on the acquisition and maintenance of manual signing. Signs corresponding to known words were generally acquired faster and retained better than signs corresponding to unknown words. (Author/JW)

Acquisition of passive and active vocabulary in sign and oral language was analyzed in 2 children congenitally deaf, through age 54 months. Acquisition of sign occurred more quickly than oral language. Production of active nouns, function words, and "wh" question words in sign was equivalent to that of hearing peers, and was later transferred to…

This study examined representational matching to sample with 68 subjects with severe mental retardation. Participants differed in their expressive communication and included symbolic (speaking) individuals, distal-gesture users, and contact-gesture users. Contact-gesture users performed significantly more poorly on identical matching to sample…

A transfer of stimulus control procedure was used to teach a 14-year-old retarded deaf girl manual signing skills. (CL)