The use to and by 40 hearing impaired students (3 to 18 years old) of speech, signs, fingerspelling, writing, gestures, American Sign Language, and pictures was investigated. Findings of a nationwide study were combined with local data to make recommendations for a program concentrating on modes, usage, flexibility, and cognitive/linguistic…

The manual alphabet was used as an adjunct to a linguistic reading system to achieve the following goals with primary grade learning disabled children: (1) ensure attention, (2) reinforce the learning of phonemes, (3) guide the student if he had difficulties, (4) introduce prefixes and suffixes, and (5) provide the child with an independent…

In this paper the author takes a positive not a negative view of sign language. It is the center of attention, not as an object of interest to the specialist in language, but as the central feature in the complex sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic system that makes the deaf person part of general American culture and at the same time part of a…

Among British deaf adults there are at least two varieties of Sign Language in use. The structure and functions of sign language in the deaf community at Reading are examined to consider whether the British deaf community might be diglossic. The process used is described and references are included. (AMH)

A description of 14 communication systems used by the deaf blind is provided. (PHR)

"Verbal" and "nonverbal" are confused and confusing terms. Gestural phenomena in semiotic use--gSigns--are called nonverbal but work in three major ways, only the first of which is unrelated to the highly encoded (verbal) activity called language. A gSign may: (1) have a general meaning: "yes,""no,""who…

Recent research in sociolinguistics has demonstrated the need for looking at language in a dynamic framework, that is, for not imposing the traditional synchronic-diachronic dichotomy on linguistic studies. Support for the dynamic framework has been given from various oral languages. This paper attempts to test variation theory with historically…

Thirty-three deaf college students were tested on ability to read fingerspelled words and letters and computerspelled words and letters, 19 hearing students were tested on the latter task alone, and 12 Ss highly experienced in fingerspelling were tested on the former task alone. On the word task Ss were scored on percent of words correct, with…

An investigation of the confusion resulting from reliance on visual perceptual teachers in the identification of dactylemes (handshapes) in the American Manual Alphabet (MA) is reported. A hierarchy of errors varying with subjects' degree of expertness in the MA is established. This can help manual communication teachers develop techniques for…

Three reasons given by advocates of fingerspelled English or visible English (VE) that their method of communication is superior to total communication (TC) were investigated with an observational study of 11 teachers in two VE schools and 15 teachers in two TC schools. (Author/IM)

Twenty-eight deaf adolescents enrolled in a day-class program for the hearing impaired were administered a battery of four short factual stories using oral, manual, simultaneous, and interpreted modalities of communication. (Author/PHR)