Briefly examined is the nature of American Sign Language and its capabilities for use in abstract reasoning. (CB)

An examination of C. Ferguson's characteristics of diglossia (function, prestige, literary heritage, acquisition, standardization, stability, grammar, lexicon, and phonology) questions the assertion that American Sign Language is inferior to signed English. (CL)

The author proposes that a more complete manual system be used with the youngest child and that, when a child has demonstrated mastery in any modality, i.e., speech (sound and/or lip formation), sign, reading or writing, the system can be made leaner. (Author/SB)

This paper describes Seeing Essential English (SEE), which is a manual code of English designed to specifically reflect English, and signed in English word order. The paper attempts to clear up misconceptions concerning SEE and confusion between SEE and Signing Exact English, provide some historical background about its development, and review…

Twenty-four severely mentally retarded adolescents (with no uncorrected visual or hearing losses) were trained to use 16 manually signed English signs. Ss were randomly assiged to sign only, or sign plus speech conditions and performances were videotaped. Analysis of results revealed that all Ss learned some signs to criterion and all showed…

The study examined the effects of a pre-training general imitation experience on the learning of manual signs by 12 severely mentally retarded children (8-14 years old) and compared the effectiveness of three training methods--imitation, molding, or both. Ss were exposed to a pre-training experience consisting of either free play or general…

Listed with ordering information and in some cases brief annotations are 61 resources pertinent to use of manual communication by retarded, autistic, and aphasic individuals who cannot communicate effectively by speaking. (JG)

Four developmentally disordered, speech deficient children (11-16 years old), who were being taught sign language as an alternative to speech, were taught to use manual signs as mediators in a delayed auditory-picture matching-to-sample task. (Author/CL)

Author presents data on Washoe, a chimpanzee taught American Sign Language; he concludes that this represents true language learning. (SP)

The results indicated that overcorrection plus positive reinforcement was effective in teaching one sign (milk); however, an added contingent exercise (having to stand up and sit down 10 times for an incorrect response) was required to teach the second sign (cookie). (Author/SW)

This study investigated speaking rate and voice onset time (VOT) in speech produced during simultaneous communication (SC) by speakers with normal hearing. The somewhat enlarged voicing contrast during SC was consistent with previous findings regarding the influence of rate changes on the temporal fine structure of speech and voicing contrast…

Sign languages modulate the production of signs in space and use this spatial modulation to refer back to entities--to maintain coreference. We ask here whether spatial modulation is so fundamental to language in the manual modality that it will be invented by individuals asked to create gestures on the spot. English speakers were asked to…