Researchers examining the structure of questions in signed languages, often using elicited data from informants, have proposed that there are specific manual and nonmanual actions produced by signers to indicate different question types (e.g., Zeshan 2004), for example, raised eyebrows for polar questions. In the current study, we add to this body…

This study examined the effect of a 1-day, 6-hour key word signing (KWS) workshop on in-service special education teachers' and speech-language pathologists' (SLPs) (a) skill identifying American Sign Language (ASL) signs; (b) skill producing ASL signs; (c) use of KWS in the classroom or therapy room; and (d) perceived changes from taking part in…

There is a pressing need for effective pedagogical methods of manual languages, as evident in the decline of manual languages, such as New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL). Despite being recognized as one of New Zealand's official languages, recent censuses have shown that fluent NZSL signers have been steadily decreasing. There is a cultural…

Defining what makes a person bilingual is notoriously difficult and dependent on various factors like fluency, age of acquisition, and situational context, among others. The notion of a "balanced bilingual" is even more elusive and fraught with limitations regarding the proper assessment and linguistic profiling of bilinguals, leading to…

Mongolian Sign Language (MSL) is a visual-gestural language that developed from multiple languages interacting as a result of both geographic proximity and political relations and of the natural development of a communication system by deaf community members. Similar to the phonological systems of other signed languages, MSL combines handshapes,…

Background: Spoken and gestural communication proficiency varies greatly among autistic individuals. Three studies examined the role of oral- and manual-motor skill in predicting autistic children's speech development. Methods: Study 1 investigated whether infant and toddler oral- and manual-motor skills predict middle childhood and teenage speech…