A program is described that helps experienced as well as new facilitators deal with the very basic needs of a quality circle that consists of both hearing and nonhearing employees. Discusses format of teaching materials, room layout, teacher responsibilities, selection of a leader, and circle members' responsibilities. (CT)

Describes the Sign Communication Proficiency Interview (SCPI) and discusses the SCPI rating scale, linguistic and cultural factors important for sign communicative competence, and skills in communicating simultaneously in signing and speaking. (EKN)

An elementary school class that learned sign language also benefited from several positive side effects. As the students developed a new means of communication, they also become more aware of deaf individuals and their needs. (DF)

Examines whether specific characteristics of American Sign Language (ASL) syntax affect perceptual processing of the language. Findings support the psychological reality of sentence embedding processes in ASL, further supporting the claim that visually based languages achieve the same functional goals as speech, although with different means. (FL)

Two experiments questioned whether deaf signers agree on the location of sign boundaries in American Sign Language (ASL), as well as where in time the boundaries are located. Results indicated that the deaf subjects were using linguistic knowledge of ASL when making judgments of the location of sign boundaries. (SL)

Communication is accomplished in many ways--through gestures, body language, writing, and speaking. Most people communicate verbally, without giving much thought to the process, but others may struggle to effectively communicate with others. The ability to express oneself affects behavior, learning, and sociability. When children are unable to…

This collection of papers examines how sign languages are distributed around the world; what occurs when they come in contact with spoken and written languages, and how signers use them in a variety of situations. Each chapter introduces the key issues in a particular area of inquiry and provides a comprehensive review of the literature. The seven…

Discusses mime, masks, improvisation, body training, and choral dynamics as techniques for improving actors' body movements. (RD)

Five severely language disordered children (20 months to 11 years old) and their parents participated in a 10-week sign training program. Group parent training sessions were conducted in four phases and individual training was provided on a weekly basis. All children showed substantial gains in use of productive language. (Author/CL)

A study examined whether deaf high school students' written English reflects their teachers' use of English sign markers in simultaneous communication by comparing the teachers' signed story with the students' interpretation. The students' output and teachers' input differed only in ways familiar from research on children's imitation and semantic…

Discusses the implications of deafness for cognition and describes communicative systems (the oral method and sign language) for the deaf. Holds that parents of deaf children should teach them both signing and speaking. (GC)

The sign and oral language development of five two-year-old hearing children of deaf parents was studied and compared with the sign and oral language of their mothers. A surprising finding was that the mothers, despite their limited oral linguistic competence, communicated predominantly in the oral mode with their children. (Author)

Analysis of constituent order in performance of native signers suggests that the notions of subject and object are less helpful for understanding the grammar than are "topic" and "comment," especially when the latter notions are related to old and new information and the semantic logic of location. (Author/MSE)

Uses data from American Sign Language complement structures to show that a syntactic theory is needed to account for these in a formal way. Constraints on the forms of these structures are discussed in terms of syntactic constraints, rather than pragmatic or functional conditions. (Author/AMH)