At the Iowa School for the Deaf, five young hearing children (age three years) were integrated into the preschool program to study the development of total communication skills including speech and language patterns. (Author/PHR)

Reveals trends influencing the enrollment rate of hearing-impaired college students and discusses the elements of a comprehensive support service program. These include: planning; establishment of services, i.e., counseling, interpreting, note-taking, and tutorial services; and benefits to the institution, the hearing-impaired students, and…

Timing sensitivity (awareness of rhythm of lapsed time), age, and sex were studied as possible predictors of success in hearing adults' learning of sign language. The results of school evaluations revealed that younger hearing adults with a sensitivity for timing learned sign language faster than did other adults. (PMJ)

Attachment behaviors were compared for groups of mother/deaf preschool child dyads where only oral communication was used and where total communication was used. Results showed that very few of the children were distressed by separation from their mothers. Further, the children's level of communicative competence was shown to be associated with…

The article considers whether young deaf children of hearing parents should learn American Sign Language (ASL) as their first language and whether teachers in day high school programs should use manual communication. It concludes that, because ASL is the key to deaf culture, it should be used by parents and teachers. (DB)

This paper reports the results from a minitrial in Sweden of the use of still-picture telephones by people with moderate mental retardation. The two participants used total communication, mixing spoken language, Pictogram symbols, and sign language. Improved communicative skills were found, though heavy staff training and involvement were…

The speech intelligibility of 18 children with prelingual deafness was examined after using cochlear implants for an average of 3 years. The average speech intelligibility score of the nine children using oral communication was significantly higher than that of nine children using total communication. (DB)

Teachers of students with deafness (31 teachers following an oral approach and 93 following the Total Communication approach) were surveyed to examine work-related stress. The two groups did not differ in overall stress levels but did differ on two stress factors: institutional provision of technical and personnel assistance, and agreement with…

This study investigated the overall intelligibility of speech produced during simultaneous communication (SC). Four hearing, experienced sign language users were recorded under SC and speech alone (SA) conditions speaking Boothroyd's (1985) forced-choice phonetic contrast material designed for measurement of speech intelligibility. Twelve…

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,…

Written to help parents and children recognize the importance of communication, this publication provides guidelines for parenting children from infancy through adolescence. Initially, discussion focuses on issues related to the nature of communication, parenting, good parenting, infancy, toddlers, and school-age children. Subsequent discussion…

Following a review of the literature, the paper describes a total communication approach to the language development of a 4-year-old autistic child. It is explained that the child was videotaped while being trained to simultaneously use elements of American sign language together with the correct spoken word or words. Training procedures are…

Six primary and six intermediate grade students were involved in a study designed to describe the learning strengths and weaknesses of hearing-impaired children and the reading skills developed by them in the course of basal reading instruction. Because of the special communication problems involved in gathering data, an interdisciplinary team…

Examined with 17 elementary level deaf children were the integration of deaf children with an oral, integrated instructional background with a deaf class with a total communication instructional background and the integration of deaf children with partial or total reliance on total communication with a hearing class. (SBH)