This study examined the relationship between parental self-efficacy in parents of young deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children and children's spoken language skills. A retrospective within-subjects study design was used that included 24 mother-child dyads with DHH children. Parental self-efficacy was assessed using the Scale of Parental…

Recently, the authors' district reconfigured the program for deaf and hard of hearing students, combining the Total Communication (TC) and Listening and Spoken Language (LSL) programs for elementary students and relocating students and staff into a single school. This prompted staff to reflect on and discuss the pedagogy unique to each program.…

This paper presents findings from a study on the use of sign supported Norwegian (SSN) in two individuals with Cri du chat syndrome (CCS). The study gives a first account of some selected aspects of production and intelligibility of SSN in CCS. Possible deviance in manual parameters, in particular inter- and/or intra-subject variation in the use…

As English increasingly becomes the international language, many ministerial and educational organisations have identified the need to improve the competence of Thai students in speaking English. While there is significant research devoted to developing software tools to support the teaching of English as a second language, they are mostly…

The Early Communication Indicator (ECI) is a measure relevant to intervention decision making and progress monitoring for infants and toddlers. With increasing recognition of the importance of quality early childhood education and intervention for all children, measurement plays an important role in documenting children's progress and outcomes of…

Two methods (signs presented with or without accompanying verbal label) of training autistic children to use manual signs were compared. The efficacy of training in both treatment conditions was demonstrated but no clear differences in acquisition speed across conditions were apparent. (Author/CL)

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 case of a deaf preschool child whose parents and teacher cooperated in a Total Communication and Signed English approach is cited. A record of the child's utterances is presented to illustrate growth in language to a level near that of a hearing child. (CL)

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…

Curricular plans for deaf students include the study of English but not of American Sign Language (ASL). This omission suggests a lack of recognition of ASL as a language and as the communication system of deaf people. Every program for the deaf students should include ASL in its requirements. (Author/CL)

The authors address several issues pertinent to designing environmentally based total communication assessment and training programs for language delayed hearing children for whom oral language training alone is inadequate. (Author/CL)

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…

In a study involving 20 Down's Syndrome children and 4 normal but language delayed preschoolers, standardized change score analyses revealed that the total communication group scored significantly higher on the Expressive scale and in the number of acquired signs. (Author/CL)

The gap between oral and manual production of the 159 profoundly deaf children in total communication programs indicated that spoken English did not develop simultaneously with manually coded English and that Ss educated in programs using manually coded English did not develop competence with early developing English syntax faster than those not…