Foreign sign language instruction is an important, but overlooked area of study. Thus the purpose of this paper was two-fold. First, the researcher sought to determine the level of knowledge and interest in foreign sign language among Deaf teenagers along with their learning preferences. Results from a survey indicated that over a third of the…

This article presents a portrait of two community-level and legal efforts in Canada to obtain official recognition of ASL and LSQ (Langue des signes quebecoise), both of which are recognized as official languages by the Canadian Association of the Deaf (CAD). In order to situate this issue in the Canadian linguistic context, the authors first…

Over their 1st year of life, infants' "universal" perception of the sounds of language narrows to encompass only those contrasts made in their native language (J. F. Werker & R. C. Tees, 1984). This research tested 40 infants in an eyetracking paradigm and showed that this pattern also holds for infants exposed to seen language--American Sign…

In this article Megan Mathisen, a teacher of deaf and hard of hearing children at St. Anne Grade School in St. Anne, Illinois, describes her work with two boys in second grade and one boy in fifth grade who at the beginning of the school year had reading and language delays. After working with them, her second grade boys are now on grade level and…

Examinations of the etymology of American Sign Language have typically involved superficial analyses of signs as they exist over a short period of time. While it is widely known that ASL is related to French Sign Language, there has yet to be a comprehensive study of this historic relationship between their lexicons. This article presents…

The Texas School for the Deaf (TSD) has two missions. One is to provide educational services to deaf and hard of hearing students and their families on the Austin campus--this is the traditional, face-to-face, center-based service model. The other is to serve as a resource center for the state, providing information, referral, programs, and…

Cochlear implants generated intense debate almost immediately following their introduction in the 1980s. Today, with a vast number of deaf individuals with cochlear implants, the debate about the cochlear implant device and mode of communication continues. Q-methodology was used in this study to explore cochlear implants and language acquisition…

In the author's role as a teacher trainer, her goal is for future teachers of the deaf to have a more solid foundation. From her own personal teaching experiences, in her observations of effective reading teachers, and with support from current literature, the author has compiled a list of strategies that will help teachers using a bimodal…

Following a year of study of Saudi Arabian Sign Language (SASL), we are documenting our findings to provide a grammatical sketch of the language. This paper represents one part of that endeavor and focuses on a description of selected morphemes, both manual and non-manual, that have appeared in the course of data collection. While some of the…

This time-saving program planner for librarians and classroom teachers alike includes everything you need to get started--reading lists, flannelboard patterns, poems, songs, easy crafts, even take-home activities to extend the learning process. The many creative ideas packed inside include: (1) Activities keyed to popular classroom themes, with…

This study takes advantage of a novel methodology--the use of a single culturally-meaningful text written in English and presented to different audiences in ASL--to examine the ways in which Deaf native signers utilize contextualization strategies in order to match the perceived linguistic and informational needs of an audience. We demonstrate,…

Child development researchers often discuss a "two-word" stage during language acquisition. However, there is still debate over whether the existence of this stage reflects primarily cognitive or linguistic constraints. Analyses of longitudinal data from two Deaf children, Mei and Cal, not exposed to an accessible first language (American Sign…

As states examine efforts to ensure college and career readiness for all students, review and possible revision of their content standards may be part of these efforts. Based on questions CSAI has received regarding how states undergo the process of revising content standards, a report was created to compile information for stakeholders interested…

To identify neural regions that automatically respond to linguistically structured, but meaningless manual gestures, 14 deaf native users of American Sign Language (ASL) and 14 hearing non-signers passively viewed pseudosigns (possible but non-existent ASL signs) and non-iconic ASL signs, in addition to a fixation baseline. For the contrast…

The intergenerational connectedness that has traditionally bound members of the Deaf community to each other is changing amidst the current technological and cultural landscape. This study explores perceptions of Deaf retirees concerning their usefulness to younger generations and their need to stay connected to each other despite increasing…