There is debate about how input variation influences child language. Most deaf children are exposed to a sign language from their non-fluent hearing parents and experience a delay in exposure to accessible language. A small number of children receive language input from their deaf parents who are fluent signers. Thus it is possible to document the…

This study explores the form of representational gestures produced by forty-five hearing children (age range 2 ; 0-3 ; 1) asked to label pictures in words. Five pictures depicting objects and five pictures depicting actions which elicited more representational gestures were chosen for more detailed analysis. The range of gestures produced for each…

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.…

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…

Compared production of gestures, signs, and words by a child simultaneously acquiring sign language and speech to that of a group of children exposed only to speech. Found that exposure to sign language influences the extent to which the manual modality of expression is used for communicative purposes but does not alter the rate or course of…

Studied the case of bilingual acquisition across two modalities to examine diverging hypotheses about the types of knowledge underlying early bilingualism. Three children acquiring Langues des Signes Quebecoise and French, and three children acquiring French and English were videotaped over a year while novel and familiar speakers of each child's…

Down Syndrome children exhibit language delays, particularly in expressive abilities, more severe than would be anticipated from their cognitive level alone. This research project sought to develop a procedure for introducing total communication into the home environment of prelinguistic Down Syndrome infants and for comparing the relative…