A case is described of a patient who has a compelling and persistent desire to become deaf. She often kept cotton wool moistened with oil in her ears and was learning sign language. Living without sound appeared to be a severe form of avoidance behavior from hyperacusis and misophonia. She had a borderline personality disorder that was associated…

This study examined deaf children's reading comprehension in relation to the linguistic structures of their sign languages of fluency and the amount of sign language input they had received. Children (n=47) born severely or profoundly deaf, in age groups from 7 to 15 years and all attending day classes in which the English-structured Manually…

Historical and current trends, practices, and perspectives regarding manual communication in educating deaf children are discussed, including Manually Coded English systems and American Sign Language. Issues concerning choice of sign language/systems and instructional strategies that support sign usage (such as Total Communication, Simultaneous…

An outsider to the field of deaf education questions the seeming ambiguousness in terminology, lack of scientific research, continuing controversies, and lack of definitive answers. Questions concern such issues as the difference between "Deaf" and "deaf" and the feasibility of the American Sign Language/English-as-a-Second-Language proposal.…

This commentary reviews the articles in this theme issue and analyzes American Sign Language (ASL) bilingual approaches to supporting children with deafness in acquiring English text skills. Also discussed are theoretical explanations for how bilingual contexts may contribute to progress in English literacy and spoken English. Issues for the…

Explores the systematic arrangement of elements in American Sign Language and compares it with English syntax. (KM)

A new deaf poetics has emerged, characterized by the focus on the centrality of the image in both American Sign Language (ASL) poems and in the international poetry community. A series of performances by ASL poets and other activities linking poets have provided new data to support the universal, i.e., poetic, phase through which language…

American Sign Language verbs have several ways to indicate time: 1)reference to a specific time; 2) extension at wrist, elbow, or shoulder to indicate future time; 3) flexion at wrist, elbow, or shoulder to indicate past tense. (Author/LMO)

Five profoundly deaf adults were recorded reading lists of individual words under three expressive modes (speech alone, speech and signs, and speech with cues). Results indicated that speech with cues produced the highest level of intelligibility, speech and signs the lowest. (Author/CL)

Studies two groups of autistic children--good versus poor verbal imitators--within the context of a receptive label acquisition task. Both groups acquired receptive signs. However, good imitators acquired receptive speech whereas poor imitators typically did not. (Author/AS)

Introduces three papers (published in this issue) contrasting the development of gestures and sign language with spoken language in order to specify the nature of language plasticity (susceptibility to change) and robustness (invariance). Focuses on question of whether these are parallel systems or an integrated system with two forms of…

The gesture systems developed by 10 deaf children, each incapable of acquiring a conventional spoken language naturally and not exposed to a conventional manual language by their hearing parents, were compared and contrasted to both the speech and the gesture systems developed by three hearing children learning English. (Author/BE)

Introduce articles which were first presented at the Annual Forum for Ethnography in Education at the University of Pennsylvania in 1984. The articles try to analyze what happens in the education of the deaf, what is experienced by the different parties involved, and the impact of these experiences on deaf children. (SED)

Research is reviewed on the Makaton Vocabulary, a sign lexicon used with severely communicatively handicapped pupils. It is concluded that the lack of published teaching strategies tends to perpetuate an oversimplified teaching formula. (CL)

A summer in-home signing program augments signing courses and attempts to reach more families and more family members. Secondary and postsecondary deaf students live with families for brief periods, helping parents, other family members and neighbors develop signing skills. (Author/CL)