The paper examines issues concerned with the incidence of visual perceptual learning disabilities among deaf and partially hearing children. Evidence indicating a high incidence (15.5 percent of 682 deaf students) of visual perceptual deficits is offered, as is a definition of visual perception. The impact of visual perceptual deficits on…

The natural sign language used by deaf children in Poland makes no distinction between present, future, and past tenses. Deaf pupils do not understand the notions of temporal sequence and duration of time intervals, and so are prevented from thinking of and planning for the future. The study with 15 deaf 12-year-old pupils and 15 deaf 14-year-old…

A training manual for teaching functional sign training to the severely multiply handicapped was developed using the Signing Exact English (SEE) system. The program, which was adapted from the Functional Speech and Language Training Program, is designed for persons who lack refined motor, speech, and language skills. Procedures are outlined to use…

The study compared two groups of young deaf adults, one whose primary family of socialization was deaf (N=12), and one whose primary family of socialization was hearing (N=12), to determine if differences existed in the sociocultural factors of identification with deaf cultural beliefs, experience with sign language, participation in adaptive…

Based upon responses from 363 schools and centered on all types of dramatics activities. (CH)

This book contains 15 essays which provide an overview of the state of the art in the discipline of anthropology, including archaelology, biological anthropology, linguistics, regional studies, and cultural-social anthropology. Most of the authors are professors and researchers from departments of anthropology in colleges and universities. Topics…

Issues concerning the teaching of sign systems to severely communicatively handicapped persons are considered. It is explained that the differences causing severe communication handicaps will affect which aspects of language processing and which aspects of language will be affected. Suggestions are made as to why some individuals who have great…

The paper describes a program of teaching simultaneous communication (total communication) to behaviorally disordered preschool children, and presents the cases of two autistic and two autisticlike children. Simultaneous communication involves tactile, visual, oral, and auditory modalities and combines spoken language with Signed English. Before…

In this paper the author takes a positive not a negative view of sign language. It is the center of attention, not as an object of interest to the specialist in language, but as the central feature in the complex sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic system that makes the deaf person part of general American culture and at the same time part of a…

In order to investigate the role of visual perceptual abilities in the acquisition and comprehension of sign language, four tests of perceptual ability were administered to 120 entering hearing-impaired students and 23 new hearing staff members at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. (Author)

Mothers of four 6- and 7-year-old autistic classmates were taught to use manual signs with verbalizations to aid development of appropriate communicative behavior and to deter undesirable behavior in their children. (Author)

A test of morpheme-based concepts was administered to 67 deaf children (ages 5-11 years) who were exposed to Seeing Essential English (SEE--a visual English sign system). (Author)

Among British deaf adults there are at least two varieties of Sign Language in use. The structure and functions of sign language in the deaf community at Reading are examined to consider whether the British deaf community might be diglossic. The process used is described and references are included. (AMH)

A discussion of techniques developed to foster spontaneous verbal language in autistic children. Signed speech refers to the simultaneous production of signs and speech. After several months of this, the signs are faded out and the verbal language remaining is employed in a creative fashion. (AMH)