Studies two groups of autistic children--good versus poor verbal imitators--within the context of a receptive label acquisition task. Both groups acquired receptive signs. However, good imitators acquired receptive speech whereas poor imitators typically did not. (Author/AS)

Introduces three papers (published in this issue) contrasting the development of gestures and sign language with spoken language in order to specify the nature of language plasticity (susceptibility to change) and robustness (invariance). Focuses on question of whether these are parallel systems or an integrated system with two forms of…

The gesture systems developed by 10 deaf children, each incapable of acquiring a conventional spoken language naturally and not exposed to a conventional manual language by their hearing parents, were compared and contrasted to both the speech and the gesture systems developed by three hearing children learning English. (Author/BE)

Introduce articles which were first presented at the Annual Forum for Ethnography in Education at the University of Pennsylvania in 1984. The articles try to analyze what happens in the education of the deaf, what is experienced by the different parties involved, and the impact of these experiences on deaf children. (SED)

Research is reviewed on the Makaton Vocabulary, a sign lexicon used with severely communicatively handicapped pupils. It is concluded that the lack of published teaching strategies tends to perpetuate an oversimplified teaching formula. (CL)

A summer in-home signing program augments signing courses and attempts to reach more families and more family members. Secondary and postsecondary deaf students live with families for brief periods, helping parents, other family members and neighbors develop signing skills. (Author/CL)

Describes a study that analyzed and described humorous productions of deaf children and the reaction of other deaf children to those productions. One finding was that primarily verbal humor was appreciated more by older children with hearing parents; humor characterized by sign complexity, by children with deaf parents. (SED)

Two methods (signs presented with or without accompanying verbal label) of training autistic children to use manual signs were compared. The efficacy of training in both treatment conditions was demonstrated but no clear differences in acquisition speed across conditions were apparent. (Author/CL)

A 13-year-old communicatively and intellectually delayed male was taught to use discriminatively each of two previously acquired augmentative systems that consisted of signing and direct select letter encoding. Procedures used resulted in the use of signs with signers and direct select encoding with nonsigners. (Author)

Eighty-four sign glosses in the elementary-aged lexicon and 87 in the adolescent/adult lexicon for language-impaired severely mentally retarded individuals were examined for usefulness in terms of eight variables. Concept concreteness and word frequency were significantly represented for adolescent/adult lexicons but not for elementary lexicons.…

Conceptually Signed English is advocated as a sign system for hearing impaired persons that reduces the confusion of other sign languages and takes idiomatic usage into account. (CL)

A communication program of Amer-Ind (a gestural communication system based on American Indian Hand Talk) was developed for 21 severely and profoundly mentally retarded children (8 to 18 years old). (Author)

Reports on an investigation of American Sign Language signs relating to the deaf gay community or used exclusively by its members. Both heterosexual and homosexual informants were used to determine which signs were known only to the gay community. Attitudes of both groups toward these words was also explored. (Author/PJM)

One year after the first evaluation, teachers rated 18 hearing impaired children on their frequency of use of the Signed English markers. On the average, the group showed a slight improvement in their use of the marker system. Additionally, frequency of use of each of the 14 markers was also rated by the teachers. (Author)