A study involving 18 adult signers with deafness and 26 hearing adults found that working memory for American Sign Language is sensitive to irrelevant signed input (and other structured visual input) in a manner similar to the effects of irrelevant auditory input on working memory for speech. (Contains references.) (CR)

A review of the research about languages, modes of expression, and usage rules and related cultural, linguistic, physiological, and sociopolitical issues concludes that more research is needed before any one method of communication can be recommended above others for the effective education of deaf children. (134 references) (CB)

The study compared comprehension of American Sign Language (ASL) between 12 deaf subjects in a program using Signing Exact English (SEE-2) and 14 deaf subjects in a residential program using Signed English, Pidgin Signed English, and ASL. Students exposed to SEE-2 could comprehend ASL as well as residential school peers. (Author/DB)

A four-year study explored face-to-face English competence of five students (ages 7-12) with deafness participating in a study of teachers' use of English-based signing. Grammatical forms similar in English and American Sign Language were initially more readily produced when tested for in English and students showed consistently higher attainment…

Recent studies with ''late-signing'' deaf children (deaf children born into families in which no-one uses a sign language) have indicated that they have difficulty performing tasks that require them to reason about other people's false beliefs. However, virtually no research has so far investigated how far late signers' difficulties with mental…

This manuscript provides a synopsis of the written history of American Sign Language-English interpreters in Canada and adds to the limited resources available to interpreter educators, to students, and to the field of visual language interpreting. Within a qualitative framework, this review of the literature identified major themes in sign…

College and university requirements for undergraduate deaf education teacher preparation programs from 1986 and 2006 were compared. Thirty percent fewer undergraduate programs were in existence in 2006 than in 1986. Compared to programs in the 1986-1987 academic year, programs in 2006-2007 placed less emphasis on course work related to speech and…

The objective of this study was to teach manual signs through an automated matching-to-sample procedure and to test for the emergence of new conditional relations and imitative behaviors. Seven adults with mild to severe mental retardation participated. Four were also hearing impaired. Relations between manual signs (set A) and pictures (set B)…

One of the greatest challenges teachers of deaf students face is how to teach students to write effectively. Teachers want them to plan, organize, and relay meaning in a coherent way, but teachers also expect them to develop a sense of control over English writing conventions and mechanics. It is probably no surprise that teachers are constantly…

This article argues that poetry written by nineteenth-century British and American deaf poets played an important role in the period's sign language debates. By placing the publication of this poetry in the context of public exhibitions of deaf students, I suggest that the poetry was mobilized to publicly defend the linguistic and intellectual…

Perception of American Sign Language (ASL) handshape and place of articulation parameters was investigated in three groups of signers: deaf native signers, deaf non-native signers who acquired ASL between the ages of 10 and 18, and hearing non-native signers who acquired ASL as a second language between the ages of 10 and 26. Participants were…

Children with autism may sometimes appear to be living in their own world and show very little interest in others. They may be socially unaware, avoiding eye contact and showing limited attachment to others. But when a child is able to express and communicate thoughts, desires, and needs, they are much more likely to seek out social interactions.…

We present the Intelligent Thai text--Thai sign translation for language learning (IT[superscript 3]STL). IT[superscript 3]STL is able to translate Thai text into Thai sign language simply and conveniently anytime, anywhere. Thai sign language is the language of the deaf in Thailand. In the translation process, the distinction between Thai text…

This article demonstrates that theories intended to prevent ethnocentric influence for one pair of languages may, in fact, be the catalyst for the phenomenon it purports to prevent in another pair. While it explores the issue in relation to sign language translation, the article raises the question of whether the findings can be extrapolated to…

This article explores constructed action (a signer's use of various parts of their body--such as the head, torso, and eyegaze--to depict the actions of a character) and why it appears to be an obligatory accompaniment to some so-called "classifier" (or polycomponential) signs. It is posited that constructed action is used to depict aspects of…