The article reviews issues related to the cognitive styles, processing modes, and learning strengths and weaknesses that should be considered when selecting augmentative and alternative communication techniques for persons with autism. Stressed is the need to change communication techniques to accommodate the expanding needs and capabilities of…

Recent research has shown that sign language varieties in India and Pakistan are related. This report examines the possible relationship of sign language varieties in India and Pakistan to those in Nepal by analyzing comparative lexical data from sign language varieties in the three countries. (10 references) (VWL)

The results of testing 14 hearing children who learned American Sign Language as preschoolers show that these bimodal, bilingual youngsters achieve significantly higher scores than average on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and suggest knowing a sign language may have a positive influence on a hearing child's acquisition of English. (11…

Exploration of two sign languages independently employed by two isolated deaf signers in a single northern India village found that both languages included such negative structure elements as context-dependence, multichannels, and nondiscrete, ambiguous signs. One signer, strongly embedded in close relationships that formed a tiny speech…

Videotaped elicited short Spanish texts and free conversations from a 23-year-old deaf woman and a 57-year-old deaf man who used Argentine Sign Language (LSA) showed that negative statements generally included a negative manual sign. The sign DECIR-NO (SAY-NO) functions in LSA as an agreement negative verb. There also exists an affirmative…

A study of deaf adult students' experience with Australian Sign Language (Auslan) emphasized that failure to acknowledge Auslan as a valid literacy is a tool for repression. Greater recognition of Auslan could widen opportunities for deaf people in further education. (SK)

Presents sign language as a central fact in the life of deaf individuals and groups and therefore as a focus for educational efforts. Looks at the different ways languages are presented to the eye instead of the ear, examines bilingualism and its special life in the life and education of deaf persons, and shows teachers ways to ask and answer…

Discuses different approaches into what language (including nonverbal communication) is, and stresses that there is no great gulf between spoken language and nonverbal communication. Redirects attention to where one ought to look for language. (Author/VWL)

Suggests considering the following before creating abbreviations of sign languages: the recognition of signed languages as official languages; the standardization of signed languages; the existence of different signed languages using the same spoken language as a substitute language; whether attention should be given to countries whose names share…

Focuses on phrasal prominence in American Sign Language (ASL). Reviews the marking of stress and phrase boundaries in ASL, and discusses prominence assignment at the phrasal level, with brief mention of lexical stress. (Author/VWL)

Describes how a laboratory phonologist might investigate three issues in the analysis of the prosody of signed languages: the internal structure, if any, of the signed syllable, the realization of lexical and phrasal prominence, and the marking of edges. Proposes to investigate the internal structure of the syllable by adapting psycholinguistic…

Reviews research from the fields of cognitive neuroscience and psycholinguistics, comparing spoken and signed language by looking at data concerning either cortical representations or early acquisition. (Author/VWL)

This study documented prevalent signs used during the interpreting process, specifically related to negation in tactile American Sign Language (TASL). Focused on ASL to TASL only.(Author/VWL)

Explores and describes from a crosslinguistic perspective, some of the major structural irregularities that characterize poetry in Italian Sign Language and distinguish poetic from nonpoetic texts. Reviews findings of previous studies of signed language poetry, and points out issues that need to be clarified to provide a more accurate description…

Focuses on the turn-taking patterns of Deaf signers and compares them with turn-taking patterns found in spoken interaction. Reports on research involving conversational data obtained from two Deaf friendship groups that aimed to establish whether Deaf interactants orient to a one-at-a-time model of turn-taking or whether there was any evidence to…