The study examined actual communicative expressions of five 3-year-old profoundly, prelingually deaf children and their mothers, along with nonverbal contextual information. Each subject was videotaped in the home while interacting with the mother in toy play and usual daily activity. Results identified more than 4,500 communicative expressions,…

The paper traces the place of total communication in the education of deaf children from its beginning in France to the current time. Evidence is presented which shows the efficacy of total communication and the trend toward its adoption by an increasing number of programs. The use of total communication with nondeaf, special education populations…

Two historic pieces of legislation have galvanized deaf people in ways that have not concerned the hearing community. The first is the American Disabilities Act, which extended legal protection to deaf people. The other, less well-known, is the "Deaf Prez Now" (DPN) or the Gallaudet University protest, which occurred in 1988 when the…

The paper reports on a two-part longitudinal study of the English language competencies of deaf students for whom total communication through manual coded English (MCE) was the primary method of instruction. In Part I of the study, the performance of three groups of deaf Ss who used MCE was compared with that of three groups of normal hearing Ss…

Three groups of teachers (10 regular teachers talking to 10 normally hearing students, 10 teachers of the deaf using oral communication to oral deaf children, and teachers of the deaf talking and signing with children taught through a manually coded English system) were videotaped in spontaneous conversation and a storytelling task. Children were…

The observational study examined the sign language and communication abilities of 10 nonspeaking, autistic and autisticlike children (6 to 14 years old) involved in simultaneous communication training. Video data were collected as each child interacted with his/her therapist and with an unfamiliar adult. Analyses of the children's and adults'…

The investigation studied the effects of different methods of conveying test instructions on the performance of 54 deaf children (6 to 8 years old) on pattern recognition tasks. Ss were randomly assigned to one of three methods of conveying test instructions: simultaneous communication method, pantomime method, and demonstration method. Ss were…

The study investigated the use of phonological encoding and chunking strategies (the skimming and clustering of highly familiar material into meaningful units) with congenitally deaf students at the middle and upper levels of an oralist school as well as hearing students at the second, third, fourth, fifth, and college grade levels. Ss were asked…

The paper describes the potential of cued speech to provide verbal language and intelligible speech to severely hearing impaired students. The approach, which combines auditory-visual-oral and manual cues, is designed as a visual supplement to normal speech. The paper traces the development of cued speech and discusses modifications made to the R.…

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…

This paper considers theory and research on identity development in deaf children and concludes that the exclusively oral method of instruction is not conducive to healthy identity development. The importance of interpersonal communication in identity development from the viewpoints of both sociological and psychoanalytical theories of identity is…

Examined is the combination of methods (aural, manual, oral) used within the philosophy of total communication for the deaf. The use of Cued Speech, a tool whose purpose is to make spoken language visually clear at the levels of phonems, syllables, suprasegmentals, words, and phrases, is advocated for communication with the deaf. (BD)

The controversy between the oral and the total communication approach to deaf education is reviewed and a study of the use of acquired speech by 71 deaf adults in Nigeria is presented. Questionnaire results are discussed in terms of demographics, cause and age at onset of deafness, use of amplification, school achievement, type of employment,…

Intended for speech and language pathologists, teachers, and others, the book serves as an introduction to the use of total communication with autistic and other severely impaired populations. A brief introduction addresses sign language adaptation, criteria for choosing a core vocabulary, and a hierarchy of receptive and expressive skills.…

To those who look to technology to enhance a person's quality of life and not merely to restore capability, it is more important and cost effective to consider environmental modifications and the functions of devices within a comprehensive context of varying situations (Milieu characteristics); user interests, needs, capabilities, expectations,…