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)

A severely retarded adolescent boy who had not acquired oral expression skills was taught five manual signs to express a food preference. A multiple baseline design employed across behaviors demonstrated that instruction was effective for all five signs. (Author)

A series of unordered recall tasks was administered to congenitally deaf subjects in three experiments using American Sign Language (ASL). The findings refuted the suffix effect resulting solely from sensory store differences or the effect arising from differences in processing "static" versus "changing-state" input.…

Presents three sets of data (signs from the "Dictionary of ASL," 1976; loan signs; and case histories of specific signs) that demonstrate the involvement of the "knuckle-wrist connection" with American Sign Language phonology. (AM)

The authors describe the results from a study using sign language and the manual alphabet to improve spelling skills of learning disabled second graders. (SBH)

Presents evidence showing that there is no need, in planning or implementing a language program for a retarded child, to exclude nonoral communication. Concludes that consistently supplementing spoken language with nonoral communication systems will not inhibit spoken language development but may well facilitate spoken language by providing a…

Discusses the Sign Language Interpreter Training Program at Arizona's Pima Community College (PCC). Presents results of the 1977 PCC feasibility study ascertaining the need for such a program. Enumerates and analyzes its goals and objectives and lists the required courses. (CAM)

Originally part of a symposium on educational media for the deaf, the paper describes the seven step process for adding sign language inserts and relates a series of five informal experiments conducted at the Instructional Media Center for the California State University. (PHR)

Symmetrical signs were acquired significantly faster than were asymmetrical signs, and touch signs were acquired significantly faster than were nontouch signs. Results of the acquisition of iconic v abstract signs were inconclusive. (Author)

Outlines a procedure for predicting the appropriateness of signing as a communicative technique for individuals with speaking impairments. The procedure compares a potential learner's motor control with those necessary for the handshapes, location, and movements of a compiled vocabulary. A procedure for predicting future possible vocabulary is…