This study, which is part of a larger longitudinal ethnographic study of young deaf children, reports on deaf children's use of fingerspelling. The children observed were early signers using Swedish Sign Language (SSL) in communication with teachers and peers. This study centres on the functions of fingerspelling in the children's everyday…

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…

A longitudinal study followed the language acquisition of three deaf infants. Analysis of videotapes recorded in the child's home during informal play was performed in terms of communicative gestures. Results revealed that Ss used a very limited number of hand configurations, locations for signs, and hand and arm movements. Analysis of the…

The impact of augmentative systems on the communicative abilities of two groups of young cerebral palsied children (total N=40) who were learning either Blissymbols or Makaton Signing was evaluated. Results indicated no significant differences between the systems and slow progress and severe limitations in sign/symbol repertoires of most children.…

The English language development of an unselected group of 20 hearing impaired children (mean age approximately four) taught Signed English was studied over a four-year period. (Author/PHR)

Examined the use of protoimperative and protodeclarative pointing gestures in three children with autism (ages 26 to 53 months) at 5-month intervals over two years. Imperative or instrumental functions emerged early in all three; declarative or experience sharing functions emerged later in two subjects and not at all in the third. (DB)

Studied across a 16-month period, young children of deaf parents showed accelerated early language development, on the average producing their first recognizable sign at 8.5 months, their tenth sign at 13.2 months, and their first sign combination at 17.0 months. Findings are inconsistent with previously reported patterns of synchrony between…

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…

Reports on a longitudinal study of developing communication in two profoundly deaf preschool boys growing up in oral deaf families who use oral English as their primary language. Results provide a window on the natural ontogenesis of a compensatory gestural system. (Contains 44 references.) (JL)

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…