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…

Examines and rejects the theory that the deaf have access to a "phonological" code. Recommends that if deaf children are to be introduced to a manual system of communication, it should be the syntactically adequate Paget-Gorman system. (Author/FL)