Describes the American Sign Language Intensive Program offered at the Manitoba School for the Deaf twice each summer, which is based on input from program staff, daily evaluations of participants over six years, and direct observation and experience of the author as participant. A key feature is program control by deaf individuals and participant…

Bilingual/bicultural (Bi/Bi) programs for children who are deaf are usually delivered via either transitional or maintenance models. Transitional models use the native language to teach a second language, whereas maintenance models teach and use both languages throughout the school day. There is a need for research into the effectiveness of BiBi…

Describes ways one teacher of deaf and hard of hearing elementary students used videotape recordings to communicate with parents on classroom activities and on the progress of individual children. Tapes show the teacher introducing new signs; teaching speech skills, academic activities, and inclusion activities; or speaking directly to parents…

Argues that WH-Movement in American Sign Language (ASL) is a leftward specifier of CP. Also argues that the occurrence of rightward WH-elements derives from independently motivated syntactic and discourse factors leading to the appearance of WH-elements in a sentence- or discourse-final positions--not by rightward WH-movement. This analysis…

Examines why bilingual education for deaf children is the best option, suggesting ways to ensure that deaf students receive the necessary American Sign Language (ASL) models in their early education. Notes that the best way to achieve success in ASL, and consequently in English, is to require that preschool teachers of deaf students be native…

Spontaneous gestures of a deaf child unexposed to sign language were studied to determine whether regularities existing within gestures were akin to morphological structure. The child's gestures, handshape/motion combinations forming a matrix for communication, suggest that structural regularity at the intraword level is a resilient property of…

Examines the acquisition of conditional sentences in American Sign Language (which entail the use of both manual signs and grammaticized nonmanual facial expressions) by deaf children. The results indicate that children first acquire manual conditional signs before they employ obligatory grammaticized facial expressions, and also acquire manual…

Communication strategies essential to make lesson content clear and visible when using sign language with deaf students are described. The strategies include getting students' attention, not overloading students with confusing visual stimuli, allowing students time to absorb visual information thoroughly, and carefully differentiating between…

Five children with severe educational retardation, aged 5-12, were involved in sign training in which the spoken words corresponding to signs were receptively known to participants. Whether signs were taught concurrently or in a serial fashion, signs taught by total communication were acquired faster than those taught by sign-alone training.…

Analysis of hearing-impaired adolescents' signed and written sentences expressing simple locative state relations found noun reversal and pragmatic focus errors in 7 percent of signed and 15 percent of written responses. Most errors were produced by profoundly hearing-impaired signers attending public day school. (Author/CB)

Presents results of a survey of sign language interpreter training and provision in European Community countries. The questionnaire addressed such areas as: language forms used by deaf people and interpreters; training funding and priorities; interpreter evaluation, registration, availability, and salaries; and societal acceptance of sign language…

The CIPP (Context Input Process Product) Evaluation Model is recommended for use in self-assessment of sign language programs. Five areas should be assessed: personnel selection, curriculum, student placement, media utilization, and supervision. For each area, a checklist is offered to determine whether existing goals and objectives require…

Twenty college students learned sign language vocabularly via an interactive videodisc system, while 20 control group students learned the same signs through a traditional classroom approach. The experimental group took one-third less time to learn as many signs as the control group. (Author/JDD)

This paper describes Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and its ramifications for sign language users, in particular, educational interpreters. Discussed are the syndrome's incidence, causes, diagnostic procedures, medical and surgical interventions, and prevention guidelines. (JDD)

Training procedures including cues-pause-point procedures were effectively used to teach two mentally retarded males (ages 18 and 20) to answer questions with sign language and generalize this training to correct responding to untrained questions. (Author/DB)