The authors reviewed the literature regarding linguistic variations seen in American Sign Language. These variations are influenced by region and culture. Features of spoken languages have also influenced sign languages as they intersected, e.g., Black ASL has been influenced by African American English. A literature review was conducted to…

Students acquiring American Sign Language (ASL) as a second language (L2) struggle with fingerspelling comprehension more than skilled signers. These L2 learners might be attempting to perceive and comprehend fingerspelling in a way that is different from native signers, which could negatively impact their ability to comprehend fingerspelling.…

There is little evidence that infants learn from infant-oriented educational videos and television programming. This 4-week longitudinal experiment investigated 15-month-olds' (N = 92) ability to learn American Sign Language signs (e.g., patting head for hat) from at-home viewing of instructional video, either with or without parent support,…

Children with autism spectrum disorder present with a variety of social communication deficits such as atypicalities in social gaze and verbal and non-verbal communication delays as well as perceptuo-motor deficits like motor incoordination and dyspraxia. In this study, we had the unique opportunity to study praxis performance in deaf children…

A survey was conducted with 67 science teachers who taught deaf children at the elementary school level. Teacher background variables, information about teacher preparation and certification, preferred teaching methods, communication methodologies, curriculum, and the use of technology were gathered. A purposeful, convenience sampling technique…

Twenty-eight college students with normal hearing, naive to sign language, were trained on 30 American Sign Language signs using computer-assisted instruction or a videotaped presentation. Results indicated significantly higher scores under the videotaped condition when sign learning and retention were probed 3 and 10 days after training.…

The written English vocabulary of 72 deaf elementary school students of various proficiency levels in American Sign Language (ASL) was compared with the performance of 60 hearing English-as-a-second-language (ESL) speakers and 61 hearing monolingual speakers of English, all of similar age. Students were asked to retell "The Tortoise and the Hare"…

Provides data on background variables of respondents collected in 1993 as part of a large-scale study of American Sign Language (ASL) teaching and compares this data to similar data collected in 1980. Also discusses changes in ASL teachers profile during this interval and identifies areas where further growth is needed. (10 references) (LR)