A study evaluated a reading and writing program to help four children with autism acquire functional communication skills. A comparison of the rate of acquisition of reading and writing skills to the rate of acquiring receptive and expressive signs found that the acquisition of reading and writing was more successful. (Contains references.)…

In the past, students with disabilities were frequently excluded from statewide testing. With changes in federal laws, states are seeking ways to increase the participation of students with disabilities in testing. Many have developed lists of allowable accommodations to facilitate participation. Although there has been an increase in research on…

Since the enactment of Public Law 94-142 in 1975, now referred to as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, more children who are deaf are attending public schools instead of residential schools for the deaf. Calculating how many children in public schools currently have a hearing loss is difficult because hearing impairment is not…

This article has four major sections: (a) general issues of assessment; (b) assessment of ethnic-group members, including those who are deaf; (c) translation of assessment tools, emphasizing translation into American Sign Language (ASL); and (d) statistical applications for translated instruments. The purpose of the article is to provide insight…

Describes a new professional training program for teachers and interpreters in Sign Language of the Netherlands. Includes courses in Deaf culture linked to practical assignments that encourage students to go forth into the Deaf community and link the theoretical knowledge taught in the classes with their own experiences among the Deaf. (Contains…

The present study examines the impact of highly inconsistent input on language acquisition. The American deaf community provides a unique opportunity to observe children exposed to nonnative language models as their only linguistic input. This research is a detailed case study of one child acquiring his native language in such circumstances. It…

This article traces the development of the concept of "audism" from its inception in the mid-1970s by exploring three distinct dimensions of oppression: individual, institutional, and metaphysical. Although the first two aspects of audism have been identified, there is a deeply rooted belief system regarding language and human identity that is yet…

Despite the importance of sign language interpreting for many deaf students, there is surprisingly little research concerning its effectiveness in the classroom. The limited research in this area is reviewed, and a new study is presented that included 23 interpreters, 105 deaf students, and 22 hearing students. Students saw two interpreted…

Studies conducted in recent years on oral and written language production show that the age at which words are learned is the main variable that influences lexical access in both hearing people and people who have suffered brain lesions. No studies have been done with deaf people and, since they use sign language in addition to oral language,…

Deaf people have difficulty reading and remembering English script because of its sound-based orthography. Logographs (e.g., kanji, Arabic numerals) should not pose the same challenge because they are based on meaning, not sound. Little research has been conducted to test this theory's validity cross-culturally. The present study was an attempt to…

Examines whether manually coded English (MCE) sign language systems are learnable. Reading achievement and expressive English skills of deaf students educated using only a MCE sign system were examined. Deaf students had expressive English skills comparable to hearing students in respect to syntactical and lexical skills but were deficient in…

When mental health clinicians perform mental status examinations, they examine the language patterns of patients because abnormal language patterns, sometimes referred to as language dysfluency, may indicate a thought disorder. Performing such examinations with deaf patients is a far more complex task, especially with traditionally underserved…

In children, concepts develop in a spiral, with the child at the center. A positive self-concept begins within a responsive caregiving environment. Concepts build upon one another. The more ideas and memories that a child has about the way the world and relationships work, the easier it is to develop further ideas. Once a child realizes, for…

The theme of this book cuts across disciplines. Contributors to this volume are specialized in education and especially classroom research as well as in linguistics, most being transdisciplinary themselves. Around 65 sub-Saharan languages figure in this volume as research objects: as means of instruction, in connection with teacher training,…

Sentence processing in American Sign Language (ASL) was investigated as a function of age of first language acquisition with a timed grammatical judgement task. Participants were 30 adults who were born deaf and first exposed to a fully perceptible language between the ages of birth and 13 years. Stimuli were grammatical and ungrammatical examples…