Signing systems that attempted to represent spoken language via manual signs -- some invented, and some borrowed from natural sign languages -- have historically been used in classrooms with deaf children. However, despite decades of research and use of these systems in the classroom, there is little evidence supporting their educational…

This article explores the available research literature on language development and language interventions among deaf and hard of hearing (d/hh) children. This literature is divided into two broad categories: Research on natural languages (specifically American Sign Language and spoken English) and research on communication systems (specifically…

In 1924 Jabbar Baghcheban created a manual system that employed the phonetic characteristics of spoken Persian and Perso-Arabic orthography for use in the education of deaf students (Ibrahimi 2007). This article is a first exploration of variation and change in this system as it has evolved into the Iranian manual alphabet. Data on the…

There is growing interest in learners' cognitive capacities to process a second language (L2) at first exposure to the target language. Evidence suggests that L2 learners are capable of processing novel words by exploiting phonological information from their first language (L1). Hearing adult learners of a sign language, however, cannot fall back…

The author cites research that casts doubt upon the use of total communication as a means of facilitating speech, communication between parent and child, academic achievement, and vocabulary development in hearing-impaired children. He states that the Alexander Graham Bell Association is not antimanual communication, but rather prospeech. (CL)

This study investigated speaking rate and voice onset time (VOT) in speech produced during simultaneous communication (SC) by speakers with normal hearing. The somewhat enlarged voicing contrast during SC was consistent with previous findings regarding the influence of rate changes on the temporal fine structure of speech and voicing contrast…

Sign languages modulate the production of signs in space and use this spatial modulation to refer back to entities--to maintain coreference. We ask here whether spatial modulation is so fundamental to language in the manual modality that it will be invented by individuals asked to create gestures on the spot. English speakers were asked to…

Classroom communication between deaf students was modeled using a question-and-answer game. Participants consisted of student pairs that relied on spoken language, pairs that relied on American Sign Language (ASL), and mixed pairs in which one student used spoken language and one signed. Although the task encouraged students to request…

A discussion of techniques developed to foster spontaneous verbal language in autistic children. Signed speech refers to the simultaneous production of signs and speech. After several months of this, the signs are faded out and the verbal language remaining is employed in a creative fashion. (AMH)

The study of effects of mode (manual only, manual plus oral, and manual plus oral plus aural) and language (Signed English or American Sign Language) on the comprehension of deaf students (mean age 16 years) found no significant treatment effect for mode of presentation; there was an interaction between languages and mode. (Author/DB)

A quantitative model of speech development is proposed based on observations of normal hearing and congenitally deaf children. Nonlinear controls used during the development of suprasegmental and segmental aspects of speech are identified. Linguistic components of speech are ignored. The importance of the associative cortex in speech-motor control…

During an eight-month treatment regimen utilizing simultaneous sign/speech input, all of the words of a young girl with Down's Syndrome were recorded. Analyses revealed that most of the words she initially signed were later spontaneously spoken and that most of her signed productions evolved into spontaneous spoken productions. (Author/JDD)

Discussed are the acquisition of native sign language by deaf children and the factors which must be considered by teachers in providing a transition from sign language to the oral method. (KW)