Investigated associations between expressive language and symbolic play in deaf children with deaf parents or with hearing parents, and hearing children with hearing parents. Defined three language level groups. Hearing status was associated with duration of symbolic play. Higher language levels were associated with more canonically sequenced and…

Argues against the linguistic account of children's responses to sentences with universal quantification and reports on investigations of their comprehension and production of quantificational sentences. The article concludes that young children have full grammatical competence with universal quantification. (58 references) (Author/CK)

Performance of 31 deaf students (ages 7-17) on 15 language and literacy measures found that students scoring highest on a passage-comprehension measure also demonstrated greater proficiency on specific skills (such as reading more listed words). In addition, students who used Signing Exact English (SEE) for 5 years or more scored better than those…

Discusses how American Sign Language does and does not resemble African American Vernacular English (Ebonics). The need for metalinguistic awareness in students is highlighted. Students are urged to learn Standard English, recognize and respect other languages they use, and know the link between language, status, and power. (CR)

Analysis of the responses of 36 deaf professionals involved in deaf education regarding the use and effectiveness of simultaneous communication indicated that the effective combination of aspects of American Sign Language and English, when used by an experienced communicator and grounded in effective signing, can be very effective for…

Comparison of the effectiveness of presenting information to deaf college students by signing only, interpreter signing and teacher speaking, and teacher signing and speaking failed to show that any one method was superior to the others. (CB)

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)

Two five-year-old children with profound hearing impairments were involved in a conditional discrimination task. They were taught to relate manual signs, pictures, and printed words in a nominal matching-to-sample task in such a way that equivalent stimuli resulted. Results showed that the establishment of equivalence relations can promote…

A teacher of hearing-impaired students describes commercially available software for teaching sign language and finger spelling, lists sources of information about other software programs, and offers suggestions to encourage teachers to utilize computers in their classrooms. (JDD)

Deaf parent/hearing child pairs (n=19) completed the Parental Strengths and Needs Inventory and were interviewed about their relationships. Scores were above average, and parents expressed high interest in childrearing information. Children with strong sign language skills expressed general willingness to interpret for their parents, and reported…

A nationwide study examined relationships between 201 prelingually deaf adolescents' reading comprehension scores and their hearing mothers' communication strategies and skills. A potential relationship was found between reading scores and signing skill levels of mothers, but no significant relationship between mothers' communication methods and…

Classes of 9th-grade and 11th-grade students with deafness read contemporary poetry and created their own poems through writing, sign language, and mime. The poetry of the profoundly deaf students followed the syntax of sign language, while students with residual hearing focused on the elements of form, especially rhyming. (JDD)

The mother of a young head injured nonverbal child describes ways used to increase the child's communicative ability including gestures, sign language, and communication boards. (DB)

Major works on the history, structure, and teaching of American Sign Language (ASL) in the last quarter-century are reviewed, and studies of the culture of the deaf are outlined. Research on the linguistic nature of ASL is highlighted, and some attention is given to British Sign Language. (Author/MSE)

Outlines phonological structure and processes of American Sign Language (ASL), covering: (1) sequential phenomena found in the production of individual signs; (2) the segmental phonetic transcription system; (3) paradigmatic and syntagmatic contrasts in ASL signs; (4) similarities between ASL and spoken language phonological processes; and (5)…