This study, which is part of a larger longitudinal ethnographic study of young deaf children, reports on deaf children's use of fingerspelling. The children observed were early signers using Swedish Sign Language (SSL) in communication with teachers and peers. This study centres on the functions of fingerspelling in the children's everyday…

This study examined young children's hand usage when they produced American Sign Language signs and while they played, in order to determine their hand preference in early signing and to compare their hand use in signing with their hand preference in other, nonlinguistic, motor actions. Subjects were 24 young children (from the age of 12 months or…

Systematic sampling was done of signing between five home-reared chimpanzees who had had 4-7 years of complete immersion in integrating their signing interaction into their nonverbal communication. Eight-eight percent of all signs reported fell into the social categories of reassurance, social interaction, and play. (SL)

Examined were the cognitive and social play behaviors of hearing impaired kindergarten children. Relations probed included those between: (1) children's social and cognitive play and sign-based or oral-aural-based classroom instruction; (2) children's overall efforts to communicate and type of class instruction; and (3) the quality of children's…

Functional, constructive, dramatic, and social play behaviors were observed in two classes of hearing-impaired kindergarten children--one using sign communication and the other using oral communication. Children in the sign-based class demonstrated higher levels of social play behavior and lower levels of aggression than the other class.…