Fifty-seven college students enrolled in their first week of introductory manual communication classes demonstrated limited ability to assess their own communication skills. A discussion of sign systems, interpreter skills, and ethics aided some students in putting their skills into perspective, but 41% continued to overestimate their abilities at…

The learning of a list of 20 Blissymbols and comparable American Sign Language signs by 121 nonhandicapped undergraduate psychology students was compared. Blissymbols were learned significantly faster than manual signs, particularly in early learning trials. Results are discussed in terms of the memory requirements of the two systems. (Author/JDD)

This study evaluated the recognition and retention of transparent and nontransparent manual signs by 50 sign-naive hearing college freshmen. There was a significant decrease in the number of nontransparent signs retained as the period of time after training increased. Implications for sign language training with nonverbal hearing persons are…

Students who are deaf or hard of hearing (n=231) used the Language Background Questionnaire (LBQ) to self assess their sign language and spoken communication skills. Formal independent estimates of these skills were also conducted. Comparison of results indicates a high degree of congruence between the self and formal assessments, which…