The working memory model for Ease of Language Understanding (ELU) predicts that processing differences between language modalities emerge when cognitive demands are explicit. This prediction was tested in three working memory experiments with participants who were Deaf Signers (DS), Hearing Signers (HS), or Hearing Nonsigners (HN). Easily nameable…

A small sample of 20 hearing students and 20 students who are deaf and hard-of-hearing participated in this study, which compared their performances on two measures of metacognition. The first measure required participants to visually analyse real-life pictures and then to choose a response from four options (voiced or signed) indicating which was…

This article is the result of a year-long study into the effects of sign language use on participation in one mainstream preschool setting. Observations and interviews were the primary data-collection tools used during this investigation. This article focuses on how the use of sign language in the classroom affected the learning community's…

Recent studies with ''late-signing'' deaf children (deaf children born into families in which no-one uses a sign language) have indicated that they have difficulty performing tasks that require them to reason about other people's false beliefs. However, virtually no research has so far investigated how far late signers' difficulties with mental…

An examination of research on language and systems used with deaf children concluded that oral English and manually coded English have produced only limited results. The approach advocates the instructional use of American Sign Language and the teaching of English as a second language to deaf children. (Authors/CL)

Responses of 162 deaf adults to an interview survey indicated findings including that sign language should be learned at an early age, before speech; that language should be acquired bilingually; and that American Sign Language and English signs should form the basis of the two languages. (Author)

Discusses deaf criminal suspects in two categories. The first involves deaf suspects who are proficient in the use of one or more of the following languages or modes: American Sign language, manually coded English, contact language, and indigenous or foreign sign languages. The second involves deaf suspects who are not proficient in any language.…

College and university requirements for undergraduate deaf education teacher preparation programs from 1986 and 2006 were compared. Thirty percent fewer undergraduate programs were in existence in 2006 than in 1986. Compared to programs in the 1986-1987 academic year, programs in 2006-2007 placed less emphasis on course work related to speech and…

The objective of this study was to teach manual signs through an automated matching-to-sample procedure and to test for the emergence of new conditional relations and imitative behaviors. Seven adults with mild to severe mental retardation participated. Four were also hearing impaired. Relations between manual signs (set A) and pictures (set B)…

This article argues that poetry written by nineteenth-century British and American deaf poets played an important role in the period's sign language debates. By placing the publication of this poetry in the context of public exhibitions of deaf students, I suggest that the poetry was mobilized to publicly defend the linguistic and intellectual…

Children with autism may sometimes appear to be living in their own world and show very little interest in others. They may be socially unaware, avoiding eye contact and showing limited attachment to others. But when a child is able to express and communicate thoughts, desires, and needs, they are much more likely to seek out social interactions.…

We present the Intelligent Thai text--Thai sign translation for language learning (IT[superscript 3]STL). IT[superscript 3]STL is able to translate Thai text into Thai sign language simply and conveniently anytime, anywhere. Thai sign language is the language of the deaf in Thailand. In the translation process, the distinction between Thai text…

The current article deals with the issue of increased dropouts of deaf pupils from compulsory education (primary and junior high school) and tries to map out plausible reasons according to what principals and teachers for the deaf say, which might account for these dropouts. Official statistics are employed to demonstrate reduced graduation rates…

The authors describe the use of cochlear implants with deaf children in Norway and examine how this intervention has raised new expectations and some tensions concerning the future of education for deaf students. They report on two studies of communication within school learning environments of young children with implants in Norwegian preschools…

This article demonstrates that theories intended to prevent ethnocentric influence for one pair of languages may, in fact, be the catalyst for the phenomenon it purports to prevent in another pair. While it explores the issue in relation to sign language translation, the article raises the question of whether the findings can be extrapolated to…