Acquisition of the location aspect of American Sign Language signs was examined in nine young hearing infants and toddlers of deaf parents. Sign locations, overall, were produced with 83.5% accuracy. Highly contrasting locations were acquired first. Location played a central role in young children's early sign language acquisition. (Author/DB)

A survey of 23 establishments found 16 were still very active in using the Makaton peer tutoring method and reported that the method had not only contributed to an increase in communication and the effectiveness of interactions, but had also resulted in increased self-esteem, confidence, and assertiveness. (Contains references.) (CR)

This study surveyed 46 professional sign language interpreters working in criminal justice settings and evaluated 22 cases to evaluate access issues for individuals with hearing impairments. Recommendations to increase the accessibility of interpreting services included providing ongoing awareness training to criminal justice personnel and…

Even though ASL isn't as easy to learn as it may seem at first, more and more students are enrolling in ASL courses at both the secondary and university levels and choosing ASL as a primary area of study. For this reason the demand for ASL teachers is increasing, and the need for ASL teacher-preparation programs (ASL TPPs) has increased.…

Within the framework of a longitudinal study of deaf children with cochlear implants, 11 children with implants were interviewed. The objective was to shed light on what it is like for a child to use a cochlear implant, based on these children's own experience with implants, which ranged from 5.0 to 7.5 years. Six of the children were in schools…

The study of deaf children's early literacy raises fundamental issues about their access to language, experiences of early interaction and literacy development. However, we currently understand very little about how young deaf children develop literacy skills given their exceptional linguistic circumstances. This review explores early literacy…

This exploratory study examined the attention-gaining and attention-regaining strategies used by a preschool educator who is Deaf during child-directed play. Four children (2 with typical hearing and 2 with severe-to-profound hearing loss) were videotaped interacting with the educator in two different play contexts. The educator used four…

The World Wide Web has changed the way people interact. It has also become an important equalizer of information access for many social sectors. However, for many people, including some sign language users, Web accessing can be difficult. For some, it not only presents another barrier to overcome but has left them without cultural equality. The…

The placement of laughter in the speech of hearing individuals is not random but "punctuates" speech, occurring during pauses and at phrase boundaries where punctuation would be placed in a transcript of a conversation. For speakers, language is dominant in the competition for the vocal tract since laughter seldom interrupts spoken phrases. For…

Increasingly, companies are taking part in process improvement programmes, which brings about a growing need for employees to interpret and act on data representations. We have carried out case studies in a range of companies to identify the existence and need of what we call "techno-mathematical literacies" (TmL): functional mathematical…

A collection of papers addresses a variety of issues regarding the nature and structure of sign language, gesture, and gesture systems. Articles include: "Theoretical Issues Relating Language, Gesture, and Space: An Overview" (Karen Emmorey, Judy S. Reilly); "Real, Surrogate, and Token Space: Grammatical Consequences in ASL American…

For more than a century, educators have recognized the low academic achievement of deaf children in America. Teacher training programs in deaf education historically have emphasized medical-pathological views of deaf people and deaf education rather than appropriate pedagogies that draw upon and build on deaf students' linguistic and cultural …

Students who are deaf often have great difficulty in accessing written English. A "bilingual" approach to education may help deaf students improve their literacy skills. This paper explains work in progress regarding two projects supported by the United States Department of Education, which explore the potential of interactive video…

This paper describes the first three stages of a 4-year study whose purpose is to examine the relationship between American Sign Language (ASL) and English literacy among 160 residential school children (ages 8-15) who are deaf. In the first stage, test instruments were developed, data collection procedures refined, sampling procedures planned,…

There have been increasing incidents of innocent people who use American Sign Language (ASL) or another form of sign language being victimized by gang violence due to misinterpretation of ASL hand formations. ASL is familiar to learners with a variety of disabilities, particularly those in the deaf community. The problem is that gang members have…