The placement of laughter in the speech of hearing individuals is not random but "punctuates" speech, occurring during pauses and at phrase boundaries where punctuation would be placed in a transcript of a conversation. For speakers, language is dominant in the competition for the vocal tract since laughter seldom interrupts spoken phrases. For…

This paper stresses the concept of deaf students as visual learners. Educators are urged to think visually in order to help maximize opportunities for deaf students to use their visual learning skills in developing literacy skills, and in their general academic, social, and personal development. Examples are offered of structural/grammatical…

This book asserts that deaf students should be treated no differently from non-deaf students and that American Sign Language (ASL) and English can coexist in the classroom, embedded in the content being taught. It stresses that language acquisition, whether oral or manual, as well as the learning of reading and writing or subject content, are all…

A dictionary of Thai sign language outlines and illustrates the vocabulary and structure of the sign language used by the deaf community throughout Thailand. It reflects the Thai lexical structure, with the signs arranged into six basic sign groups (movement verbs, oppositions, negation, verb tenses, dimensions, and a category containing days,…

Described is a structured approach to managing behavior and increasing socialization skills of severely disturbed children in primary and adolescent classrooms. It is noted that manual signing accompanied by verbalization, gesture, and physical assisting is used to communicate behavioral expectations in the primary class; while in the adolescent…

Reviewed are 40 years of research on the prosthesis of communication deficiencies using chimpanzees, and severely retarded or deaf children. (DB)

This paper, in reviewing four different studies, discusses the influence of some basic parameters or aspects of a sign on the accuracy of perceiving that sign. This information can aid the teaching of signs to the mentally retarded, the autistic, the cerebral palsied, and the hearing adult. A series of studies was conducted in which the aim was to…

Interest is focused on the relationship between how old a person is when he or she first begins to learn a language and the fluency with which he or she can produce and understand that language in adulthood. The goal is to describe and measure the relationship between early experience and environment in language learning. In particular, the…

The annual report describes goals and objectives, implementation procedures, and results, evaluation, and recommendations of the Piedmont Virginia Community College project to improve vocational guidance and counseling for handicapped students. The project had the following goals: to provide an opportunity for key faculty, staff, counselors, and…

Following a review of the literature, the paper describes a total communication approach to the language development of a 4-year-old autistic child. It is explained that the child was videotaped while being trained to simultaneously use elements of American sign language together with the correct spoken word or words. Training procedures are…

This research focused on the initial stage of language development of a hearing child who was acquiring simultaneously both spoken English and American Sign Language (ASL). The report covers the first phase of the longitudinal research on the child's linguistic development, focusing on early word meanings. The data were collected from the time…

This 24-item annotated bibliography is intended to facilitate introduction to the field of sign language studies. It lists selected published works in English in which sign language is viewed from several different aspects, including: theoretical studies (nos. 1, 5, 6, 19, 20 and 21); works relating Sign to other visual communication systems (nos.…

Provided are suggestions for selecting and implementing a sign language system with multiply handicapped deaf children and adults, based on a program at the Stone Belt Center (Bloomington, Indiana). Discussed are reasons for deciding to use sign language with the multiply handicapped deaf, nine different sign language systems, guidelines for…

To assess competency in American Sign Language (ASL) and manually coded English (MCE), 219 National Technical Institute for the Deaf students, judged to be skilled signers, viewed videotaped stories, one in ASL and one in MCE, followed by true/false questions in the same language as the story. (Author/PHR)

Describes the obstacles facing hearing-impaired people as they attempt to learn to write and suggests ways to implement a college program to bridge the gap between natural Sign Language and English. (DD)