A survey of 71 day and residential schools found 19 identified themselves as bilingual-bicultural (BiBi) programs. Of the 19 programs, 37% reported use of manually coded English. Fluency in American Sign Language of instructional and support staff varied, with 47% reporting no more than half of instructional staff were fluent. (Contains…

Describes a study that found, contrary to previous reports, that a strong, symmetrical release from proactive interference (PI) is the normal outcome for switches between American Sign Language (ASL) signs and English words and with switches between Manual and English alphabet characters. Subjects were college students enrolled in their first ASL…

Because traditional Mother Goose rhymes accustom the ear and the tongue to the musical aspects of the English language, they are particularly valuable for English-as-a-Second-Language students, and for deaf and hearing-impaired children. (BB)

This longitudinal study first administered the Uzgiris and Hunt scales (to predict learning of manual signs) to 34 children (mean age 5) with severe and profound mental retardation. Evaluation four years later indicated that achievement of stage five on the Uzgiris and Hunt scales was necessary for even minimal learning and use of manual signs.…

As most deaf individuals experience two languages (American Sign Language, English) and three modalities (sign, speech, print), this article describes code variations and adaptations in particular situations at a school for the deaf. Most language was mixed in both code and mode; such mixing was seen to be a strategy which uniquely adapts…

Papers on phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics from a conference on formal linguistics include: "Major Class Alternations" (Young-Mee Yu Cho, S. Inkelas); "On Defining Complex Templates (R. Kager); "Sandhi and Syllables in Classical Sanskrit" (B. Kessler); "Catalexis in Word Stress: Evidence from Spanish and…

Discussion of speech instruction in bilingual education for deaf children refutes the assumption that speech is acquired automatically by hearing children and examines a program in which deaf children are taught alongside hearing children. The first part looks at how speech functions and how children acquire it: including the nature of the…

At Phoenix College, in Arizona, most classes have seen an increasing number of disabled students, but usually only one student with a given disability is present. When five deaf students enrolled in a Plants and Society course in fall 1994, the instructor became aware of problems which were not evident with single disabled students. First,…

This practicum involved the development and delivery of a three semester hour community college course for five speech-language pathology (SLP) support personnel assisting in a preschool setting. The practicum addressed the specific problem that support personnel did not demonstrate independent and effective instructional strategies when…

This paper describes the planning and implementation of an instructional unit to teach the basics of American Sign Language to a class of nine elementary-aged male students with serious emotional disturbances (including one with a severe hearing impairment) in a laboratory school. The systematic instructional approach, direct instruction, was…

The move toward inclusive education potentially threatens the very heart of the Deaf cultural community, and may be an example of "epistemic violence" where the dominant ideology of equality of access to educational resources actually serves to reproduce structured inequalities. Deaf education has been moving away from a view of deafness as a…

A review of literature focuses on the literacy acquisition process of deaf children who acquire American Sign Language (ASL) as a first language and written English as a second language. Literacy in this context is defined broadly to include the context and culture in which reading and writing occur, referring to the strong connection between…

This paper discusses the use of American Sign Language (ASL) in an English-as-a-Second-Language approach to teaching reading and writing skills to deaf students. The paper poses and answers the following theoretical and practical questions: (1) What is the nature of first language reading? (2) What is the nature of second language reading? (3)…

When evaluating the work of congenitally deaf students whose native language is spatial and semiotic, composition teachers must avoid being what Marjorie Siegel calls "verbocentric," since congenitally deaf students are, in effect, learning to write in a language completely foreign to them in structure, syntax, and grammar. The…

The project evaluated the effectiveness of using Total Communication (simultaneous use of sign language and speech) with six infants with Down syndrome as a means of fostering communication while verbal skills and articulatory proficiency develop. Each child was seen within the home environment every second week through 24 months of age and once a…