This paper stresses the concept of deaf students as visual learners. Educators are urged to think visually in order to help maximize opportunities for deaf students to use their visual learning skills in developing literacy skills, and in their general academic, social, and personal development. Examples are offered of structural/grammatical…

The problem of English language-processing by 30 prelingually deaf high school students is examined from a contextualist perspective. The influence of language mode (print or sign) and syntax--English or American Sign Language (ASL) on recall, preference, and comprehension was approached through the processing of meaningful and coherent passages…

This discussion is based on the results of an earlier experiment in which four groups of deaf subjects, ranging in age of first exposure to signing from birth to over eighteen, were given lists of sentences in American Sign Language to shadow and recall immediately after presentation. It was found that in terms of overall accuracy, early learners…

A study was conducted of the language development of a hearing child whose mother was deaf and communicated only in sign and whose father was hearing and communicated in both sign and oral language. Results showed similarities in development between the two modalities as well as similarity between development in two separate modalities and two…

This paper summarizes most of what Sign linguists know about the function of the eyes in American Sign Language discourse. Here, "eyes" is taken to cover both opening and closing of the eyes and looking in a particular direction, referred to as the signer's "gaze-direction." Evidence is presented demonstrating that a signer's gaze can be lexically…

Two pilot studies probed effectiveness of linguistically controlled, highly visual computer-assisted instruction (CAI) for English grammar instruction with hearing-impaired high school students (N=29 in the first study and N=71 in the second). Results from the first study suggested that state-of-the-art CAI designed specifically for use with this…

A study examined aspects of the acquisition of spatialized morphology and syntax in American Sign Language (ASL) learned natively by deaf children of deaf parents. Children aged 2 to 8 were shown story books to elicit narratives, and the resulting use of verbs contained morphological forms not appearing in adult grammar. Analysis of the creative…

This paper describes the linguistic development of two hearing sons of deaf parents. Both were exposed to an early language environment different from that of the average hearing child. At the start of the study, the boys were aged 3 years, 9 months, and 1 year, 8 months, respectively. When first observed, the older child performed well below age…

This paper discusses the development of a criterion-referenced assessment measure for both written English and American Sign Language (ASL) that can be used with deaf elementary through secondary students. The measure is presented as well as the results of a trial use. Developed by the Cleary School for the Deaf, the Cleary Language Assessment…