The transition from pre-linguistic to linguistic communication was investigated in the acquisition of pronouns in American Sign Language (ASL). Data were obtained from a congenitally deaf child learning ASL as a first language from deaf parents. Longitudinal data from the age of 6 months to 2 years and pronoun elicitation task data were analyzed.…

To test three hypotheses concerning fingerspelling's contribution to word recognition, 24 deaf children in three age groups (7-9, 10-12, and 13-15 years) were administered a vocabulary recognition test and a lexical decision task. Subjects' performance was measured by the number of words accurately identified and the response latency. Results did…

This bibliography covers alternative and augmentative communication and includes English-language citations for books, journal articles, and conference proceedings. The list contains over 400 citations, organized in alphabetical order by author, with references to publications dated from 1973 to 1986. Each bibliographic entry is coded for the…

Twenty-four deaf children (6 to 10 years old) were individually administered a task in which possession of accumulating candy rewards was made contingent upon the child stopping further accumulation. Ss, who under instruction periodically signed statements about the goodness of the reward, waited significantly longer before terminating the waiting…

The study involving 60 undergraduate students investigated sign language as a function of sign translucency (the perceived relationship between a sign and its referent) and referential concreteness. Translucency and concreteness levels were varied and naive sign language learners attempted to learn a list of sign referent pairs. Results indicated…

Field researchers of sign language are the target of this methodological guide. The prospective researcher is briefed on the rationale of sign language study as language study and as distinct from the study of kinesics. Subjects covered include problems of translating, use of interpreters, and ethics. Instruments for obtaining social and language…

The acquisition of expressive sign language was studied in four autistic children (ages 10-15 years). Ss were taught expressive sign labels for common objects using a training procedure consisting of prompting, fading, and stimulus totation. The signing of three of the Ss was found to be controlled solely by the visual cues associated with the…

The story of Margaret, the daughter of deaf parents, depicts the frustrations and difficulties encountered in the silent world of the deaf. The text describes the family struggling through a life made more difficult by the naivete of the parents who, insulated from sound, received an inadequate education and were perplexed by things that most…

Listed with ordering information and in some cases brief annotations are 61 resources pertinent to use of manual communication by retarded, autistic, and aphasic individuals who cannot communicate effectively by speaking. (JG)

Four keynote papers, presented at an international conference on sign language research, discussed general linguistic issues of sign language, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and language acquisition. (CB)

The simultaneous presentation of picture book and signer on split screen videotape made literature more accessible and vital to hearing-impaired students. Suggestions are provided for preparing students for the viewing, discussing the story after viewing, and making videotapes. (CB)

The article stresses (1) the importance of vocational rehabilitation personnel and deaf clients establishing effective communication, and (2) the importance of an integrated approach to sign communication skills assessment and development for vocational rehabilitation personnel. Georgia and New York State programs and the Sign Communication…

"Grandfather Moose" rhymes, written to follow the Mother Goose tradition, are short, appealing, easy-to-memorize sign language nursery rhymes which employ visual poetic devices such as similar signs and transitional flow of movement. (CB)

Five nonverbal severely mentally retarded and three nonverbal deaf children learned to use a sign-rehearsal strategy in one of two memory tasks. Generalization to a simpler task was accomplished for two Ss trained in a more complex task. (Author/CL)

Reports that four deaf children of hearing parents, who lacked usable conventional linguistic input, developed a gestural communication system that showed some of the structural regularities characteristic of early child language. Suggests that communication with a number of language-like properties can develop in an atypical language-learning…