The mother of a four-year-old with Down's syndrome describes how sign language instruction helped not only to increase his manual expression but his oral speech as well. (CL)

Fifteen mildly retarded fifth and sixth graders were trained to tutor their nonhandicapped peers in sign language. Parent and peer reaction was positive, and the retarded students learned to become tutors. (CL)

Signs selected from lists used in studies with mentally retarded and autistic children and previously rated for visual iconicity were presented tactilely to 13 blind adults and adolescents. Visual and tactile ratings were found to be very similar across blind, deaf, and hearing-sighted adults and hearing-sighted children. (Author/CL)

Six profoundly mentally retarded adults were trained to use 10 signs. Two Ss learned all signs with 100% accuracy without verbal prompting; four Ss learned seven to eight signs, varying with stimulus cue and setting. It was suggested that the four Ss may not have possessed adequate cognitive ability. (CL)

A systematic sign language (Paget system) offering a grammatical means of expression is discussed. Application of the system at a school for the blind is provided. (CD)

Criticism of Manually Coded English (MCE) with deaf children is examined in terms of its classification as a language, its inadequate rate of information flow, and its inexact use. Research on MCE is reviewed, and it is suggested that MCE systems are not being used to their best advantage. (CL)

A program to involve institutional staff in developing manual sign language skills with six profoundly retarded persons was evaluated. Results indicated that all participating residents learned to communicate with signing during structured interactions on their living unit and the skills maintained during follow-up assessments ranging from 39 to…

The Paget-Gorman Sign System, a signed English approach shown to be effective with deaf or hard of hearing children, has been helpful in developing phrase structure in hearing impaired mentally retarded students. (CL)

Investigates sign learning as a function of sign translucency (ease of relating a sign to its referents) and referential concreteness. Naive sign learners attempted to learn a list of sign-referent pairs. Signs high in translucency and referents high in concreteness facilitated learning; low levels of each variable inhibited learning. (Author/PJM)

The author cites research that casts doubt upon the use of total communication as a means of facilitating speech, communication between parent and child, academic achievement, and vocabulary development in hearing-impaired children. He states that the Alexander Graham Bell Association is not antimanual communication, but rather prospeech. (CL)

Explores the social relation between a natural sign language and the language of the dominant hearing culture, focusing on language attitudes, status and affiliation, language contact influence, language variation and change, and language standardization. (58 references) (CB)

A comparison of terms from the lexical domain of color naming across 10 different sign languages from 7 different sign language groups suggested that, for naming colors, sign languages follow universal patterns not dependent upon the channel of language expression and reception. (Author)

Carol Padden's influential framework for observations of deaf culture is examined. Some potentially potent socio-anthropological ideas are used to sketch implications for revisions of such a framework, adjusting concepts of culture and asking how notions of deaf culture are constructed. (Contains 55 references.) (Author/LB)

Examines a traditional Mayan village in the Yucatan where deaf inhabitants use a sign language that is distinct from that used in other Mexican communities. Because the hearing villagers are able to communicate in this sign language, the deaf inhabitants are almost fully integrated into the social and economic life of the village. (22 references)…

Twenty master Sign Language interpreters transliterated monologue containing normal speech pausing and then transliterated same passage with inappropriate pausing and reduced intonation. When transliterating, interpreters render source message pauses with visible signals. Interpreters render different kinds of auditory pauses with different kinds…