Background: Children with Down syndrome have speech and language difficulties that are disproportionate to their overall intellectual ability and relative strengths in the use of gesture. Shared book reading between parents and their children provides an effective context in which language development can be facilitated. However, children with…

Researchers examining the structure of questions in signed languages, often using elicited data from informants, have proposed that there are specific manual and nonmanual actions produced by signers to indicate different question types (e.g., Zeshan 2004), for example, raised eyebrows for polar questions. In the current study, we add to this body…

Establishing evidence- and research-based practices relies upon research synthesis of individual studies in reviews and meta analyses. Further summarizing scientific evidence about a specific topic by synthesizing reviews is an area of need to determine practices that have a strong evidence base and to identify areas of methodological weakness and…

This study examined the effect of a 1-day, 6-hour key word signing (KWS) workshop on in-service special education teachers' and speech-language pathologists' (SLPs) (a) skill identifying American Sign Language (ASL) signs; (b) skill producing ASL signs; (c) use of KWS in the classroom or therapy room; and (d) perceived changes from taking part in…

Signing systems that attempted to represent spoken language via manual signs -- some invented, and some borrowed from natural sign languages -- have historically been used in classrooms with deaf children. However, despite decades of research and use of these systems in the classroom, there is little evidence supporting their educational…

Key word signing, an unaided augmentative, and alternative communication (AAC) system is commonly used by children with Down syndrome who attend mainstream primary schools. To ensure the successful use of key word signing within a mainstream environment, a meaningful, contextually appropriate sign vocabulary must be available to all communication…