This brief article reviews printed and digital resources on the legal status of a sign language.

It is known that in American Sign Language (ASL) span is shorter than in English, but this discrepancy has never been systematically investigated using other pairs of signed and spoken languages. This finding is at odds with results showing that short-term memory (STM) for signs has an internal organization similar to STM for words. Moreover, some…

Lexical variation abounds in New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) and is commonly associated with the introduction of the Australasian Signed English lexicon into Deaf education in 1979, before NZSL was acknowledged as a language. Evidence from dictionaries of NZSL collated between 1986 and 1997 reveal many coexisting variants for the numbers from one…

The authors examined the effects of captions on deaf students' content comprehension, cognitive load, and motivation in online learning. The participants in the study were 62 deaf adult students who had limited reading comprehension skills and used sign language as a first language. Participants were randomly assigned to either the control group…

The study examined factors in deaf parents' decision between cochlear implantation (CI) and traditional hearing aids for their child. The subjects were 6 Flemish children ages 5-9 years with severe/profound congenital hearing loss, with at least 1 deaf parent. The researchers, who conducted thematic content analysis of qualitative data collected…

This article discusses a survey study that drew on seventy-five high school students at a residential deaf school in Japan. The aim of the survey was to examine the various ways in which deaf adolescents use text messaging and to determine whether they use the technology differently from the hearing high school students surveyed in our previously…

Deaf students are attending mainstream postsecondary institutions in increasing numbers. This study attempts to fill a gap in the literature regarding deaf students' writing tutorials with hearing tutors and interpreters. It consists of observation of tutoring sessions, interviews, and collection and grounded theory analysis of relevant documents…

American Sign Language (ASL) is the natural and preferred language of the Deaf community in both the United States and Canada. Woodward (1978) estimated that approximately 60% of the ASL lexicon is derived from early 19th century French Sign Language, which is known as "langue des signes francaise" (LSF). The lexicon of LSF and ASL may…

Current studies on language and literacy in hearing children have pointed to face-to-face linguistic interaction as one crucial factor in the emergence of literacy. Studies that explored the language and literacy of preschool children, both in the their homes and in school, have found that the kind of talk and the quality of talk that transpires…

Educational reform and financial considerations have emphasized accountability and use of research-based materials and strategies in education. Simultaneously, with growing enrollment in elementary, secondary, and postsecondary ASL programs, the number of commercially marketed materials has grown. Do such materials stand up under scrutiny when…

This study explores contemporary attitudes to Australian Sign Language (Auslan). Since at least the 1960s, sign languages have been accepted by linguists as natural languages with all of the key ingredients common to spoken languages. However, these visual-spatial languages have historically been subject to ignorance and myth in Australia and…

In this article, we adapt a concept designed to structure language testing more effectively, the "Assessment Use Argument" ("AUA"), as a framework for the development and/or use of sign language assessments for deaf children who are taught in a sign bilingual education setting. By drawing on data from a recent investigation of…

This study explores the form of representational gestures produced by forty-five hearing children (age range 2 ; 0-3 ; 1) asked to label pictures in words. Five pictures depicting objects and five pictures depicting actions which elicited more representational gestures were chosen for more detailed analysis. The range of gestures produced for each…

Genetic counseling is part of the social response to the science of genetics. It is intended to help twenty-first-century societies manage the consequences of our ability to observe and intervene in our genetic makeup. This article explores the views, knowledge, and beliefs of some Deaf and hard of hearing people about genetics and genetic…

Deaf adults' access to smoking cessation programs is limited due to cultural, linguistic, and geographic barriers. Web-based stop-smoking interventions have demonstrated cessation rates comparable to other interventions. The Internet is widely used by Deaf adults, but difficulties with online English text remain. We found no published accounts of…