Words in English often have multiple meanings, causing concepts to be paired with incorrect signs when working with deaf students, such as the concept of "made up" meaning either "invented" or "decided." A method called "sentence chains" is recommended as a drill to learn to link concepts with their appropriate signs. (JDD)

This article discusses the development of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory for American Sign Language (ASL-CDI), a parent report that measures early sign production. Normative data from 69 children (8-36 months) with deafness and their parents with deafness found the development of the ASL-CDI has been successful. (Contains…

Preliminary results are described of an attempt to analyze the talk of the Finnish deaf signing community from the perspective of conversation analysis (CA). CA is described as an empirical approach to the study of spoken conversation deriving from the field of ethnomethodology, which itself emerged as a reaction to traditional sociology in the…

The study examined whether deaf children's gesture systems are structured at the morpheme level of analysis. A 3-year-old deaf child from the authors' previous study was selected and all of his characterizing signs produced during a 2-hour naturalistic play session in his home were videotaped. Each sign was coded in terms of its handshape, motion,…

This paper describes and provides documentation for the development of a signage system for the Maine State Library. A brief description of the process is accompanied by copies of the Request for Proposal (RFP); a score sheet used to evaluate the offerings of various companies bidding for the contract and the results of the evaluation; a copy of…

Sign language with verbal behaviorally disordered children is an alternative mode of communication for helping to maintain behavioral control. Also, fingerspelling is used to teach letter-sound association, particularly with vowels. The use of signs in the classroom reduces unnecessary conversation and expands on simple cues and signals most…

Eighteen deaf college students performed two tasks designed to investigate possible alternative codes of reading and remembering. First, Ss judged the meaningfulness of sentences with or without a concurrent task (intended to interfere with either articulatory or visual-spatial coding). Secondly, Ss remembered a list of six letters presented…

The book reports on a descriptive study of communicative strategies used by 15 deaf preschoolers. Video recording with simultaneous direct observations were made once a month in a kindergarten for deaf and hearing children. Children were observed during periods from .5 to 2 years. Descriptions of communicative strategies are based on…

Electroencephalogram and task performance data were collected from three groups of young adult males: profoundly deaf Ss who signed from an early age, profoundly deaf Ss who only used oral (speech and speedreading) methods of communication, and normal hearing Ss. Alpha and Beta brain wave patterns over the Wernicke's area were compared across…

Describes a preschool class for handicapped children in which speech development is fostered through use of manual signing in combination with spoken language. (SB)

The study compared signed and spoken English in hearing-impaired children (N=50) of hearing-impaired parents (HIP) with another group of hearing-impaired children (N=50) of hearing parents (HP). At ages seven and eight, HIP children demonstrated a significant linguistic advantage in both their spoken and signed English over HP children. (Author/DB)

Gestural cueing may be used successfully with children who do not require exposure to a sign or total communication approach. Emphasizing cueing in both the training and generalization phases of language learning, this article discusses specific learning activities, the effect of motor components on language, and procedures for using gestural…

The study attempted to determine whether children and adults perceive different amounts of translucency in signs drawn from early sign teaching lexicons and representing three different semantic classes. Results indicate that four- and seven-year-old children and adults perceive signs representing action as more translucent than signs representing…

The paper describes the development of Signed Target Phoneme (STP) Therapy, using the hand shapes of the Americal Manual Alphabet to cue phonemes. Adding STP to traditional therapy methods with a five-year-old boy diagnosed as having developmental apraxia of speech revealed a positive relationship between application of STP procedures and a more…