The Deaf Way Conference at Gallaudet University (Washington, DC) gathered over 5,000 people from 81 nations to discuss the future of deaf people worldwide. This article offers brief summaries of conditions in Pakistan, Thailand, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Peru, Venezuela, and Denmark. National history, demographics, special education, and sign language…

Analysis of the performance of beginning American Sign Language students, who had only recently learned the manual alphabet, on a task in which proactive interference would build up rapidly on successive trials, supported the view that different languages have separate memory stores. (Author/CB)

Deaf culture is defined, and hearing parents of deaf children are encouraged to learn about deaf culture, by making contact with deaf people, learning sign language, and learning about deaf folklore and history. A resource list on deaf folklore and sign language includes books, articles, periodicals, and national organizations. (JDD)

The study examined the effectiveness of using sign language (Signing Exact English) to facilitate reading in students classified as trainable mentally handicapped. Results indicated that subjects learning to read words with an accompanying sign identified and retained significantly more vocabulary than did students learning to read in a…

Multilevel analyses compared performances of 12 deaf Jamaican adolescents (ages 15 and 16) and 12 hearing adolescents (ages 13 and 14) on writing, reading, and (for deaf subjects) sign language tasks. The deaf adolescents' ability to express complex ideas in sign language supported the need for use of a bilingual approach to the teaching of…

This study with 14 prelingually deaf adults seeking counseling found that the use of "lay" counselors using sign language was effective; these deaf individuals varied greatly in their problems, needs, and potentials; these adults accepted their deafness; and all had some positive resources in either their emotional network (family) or social…

This paper describes a combination of cued speech and signs called Complete Signed and Cued French, which is designed to enable deaf children to progress simultaneously in signed and spoken language, respect each child's learning rhythm, and develop expressive skills in conjunction with comprehension abilities. (Author/JDD)

A survey of teachers' and students' perceptions of the difficulty of learning American Sign Language (ASL) suggested that teachers generally rated the learning difficulty levels higher than students, and both groups cited such sociolinguistic and affective problems as cultural inhibitions, interacting with the deaf, and attitudes and motivations…

Acquisition of passive and active vocabulary in sign and oral language was analyzed in 2 children congenitally deaf, through age 54 months. Acquisition of sign occurred more quickly than oral language. Production of active nouns, function words, and "wh" question words in sign was equivalent to that of hearing peers, and was later transferred to…

This article focuses on the complex dynamics and the practical demands of teaching English to deaf children for whom British Sign Language (BSL) is a preferred/dominant language. A model focusing on the relationship between English and BSL is presented, and implications for curriculum and teaching methods are drawn. (DB)

Videotapes of simultaneous communication users were analyzed by three sign language professionals. Successful simultaneous communication was characterized by clear lip movement, fingerspelling of ambiguous signs, eye contact, communication of mood and attitude, modality match, and grammatical facial expression. Matching the semantically…

Reports on a study to examine the role of music in the deaf culture and to relate the findings to music education programs for hearing-impaired students. Finds that cultural identification is a major factor in deaf individuals' involvement with music. Concludes that music can have an important role in the education of most hearing-impaired…

Compared 6-month-old hearing infants' responsiveness to infant-directed and adult-directed signing. Results replicated those found with deaf infants, namely that infants showed greater attentional and affective responsiveness to infant-directed sign than to adult-directed sign, suggesting that infants are prepared to detect sign motherese…

This reprinted article of a 1966 study found that 38 children with deafness who had learned to communicate manually before entrance to school were superior in reading, speech reading, and written language compared to 38 children with deafness who had not learned to communicate manually before school entrance. (CR)

Videotaped productions of isolated American Sign Language signs or sentences were presented at speeds of two to six times normal. Results indicated a breakdown in intelligibility at around 2.5 to 3 times the normal rate. Results are similar to those found for auditory reception of time-compressed speech suggesting a modality-independent limit to…