Levels of Development in the Language of Deaf Children: ASL Grammatical Processes, Signed English Structures, Semantic Features

This study describes the spontaneous sign language of six deaf children (6 to 16 years old) of hearing parents, who were exposed to Signed English when after the age of six they first attended a school for the deaf. Samples of their language taken at three times over a 15-month period were searched for processes and structures representative or not representative of Signed English. The nature of their developing semantics was described as the systematic acquisition of features of meaning in signs from selected lexical categories (kinship terms, negation, time expression, wh-questions, descriptive terms, and prepositions/conjunctions). Processes not representative of Signed English were found to conform with grammatical processes of American Sign Language (ASL) and were so described. Five levels of increasing complexity of these ASL processes and of the structures representative of Signed English were hypothesized. Levels of increasing complexity of semantic feature acquisition of signs within the lexical categories named above were also hypothesized. The development of ASL grammatical processes was found to be orderly and characterized by the appearance of new processes and structures and by increases in utterance length and complexity resulting from the coordination and expansion of formerly used processes. By the end of Level 2, subjects displayed knowledge of most basic sentence forms, simultaneous processes, and some grammatical uses of repetition. A significant change appeared at Level 3, when processes that could express meaning simultaneously were used to portray communication between the signer and others as well as to express two different ideas simultaneously. These uses provided the foundation for Level 4 and Level 5 processes, which functioned to set up locations in space in increasingly complex ways. These processes decreased the need for total dependence on visual field content (i.e. immediate context), since persons and objects were first established, next assigned a position in front of the signers, bodies (i.e. set up in a particular location), and then commented about -- as opposed to the earlier process of first pointing out and then naming and describing elements of the visible picture. Thus as the subjects became more linguistically mature, they developed scene-setting (typically ASL) ways of establishing who or what they were referring to, by making efficient use of signing space. This developmental change also revealed that the children were beginning to conceptualize events as wholes and to relate information about them in logical ways. The development of structures representative of Signed English was likewise an orderly process, characterized by the appearance of new relations and the coordination and expansion of formerly used relations. By the end of Level 2, most basic semantic and grammatical relations were expressed by signs in English order. Preposition-object, appositive, genitive, and disjunctive relationst basic semantic and grammatical relations were expressed by signs in English order. Preposition-object, appositive, genitive, and disjunctive relations were later occurring relations (Levels 3\u27and 4), as were dative and indirect object relations (Level 5). There was some evidence to indicate that the consistent use of Signed English grammatical morphemes followed the order of acquisition of these morphemes by hearing children, presumably in both cases a function of the grammatical or semantic complexity of the morphemes themselves. Learning the meanings for signs was, for the most part, a process in which labels (signs) for referents took on additional features and thereby became more specific. This process is compared with the general process of perception, in which initially single, usually broad or attribute features of meaning are perceived and labelled before more defining features are added to form configurations of features for a particular referent. A brief contrast between the development of ASL grammatical processes and the development of structures representative of Signed English revealed both differences and similarities in development. Quite clearly, the contrast showed that the children were more linguistically competent using ASL grammatical processes -- processes be it noted for which they had no adult model

The Acquisition of Sign Meaning in Deaf Children of Hearing Parents

How do Deaf children of non-signing parents go about the process of assigning signs to their referents? It seems that much like hearing children, they initially use signs in their everyday conversations that do not always mean the referents they were intended to mean. The findings presented here are the result of six case studies of semantic development over a period of 15 months of children ranging in age from six to sixteen who were raised without sign language and had no instruction in sign language until being placed in a New York City school where sign language was used. Mismatches between sign and referent provided the data from which to hypothesize possible strategies that the children were using in learning to mean

An Alternative View of Education for Deaf Children: Part II

How might deaf children acquire one of the primary goals of education literacy in English? This article suggests that literacy in English as well as knowledge of the English language can be acquired concomitantly through developmental reading and writing activities that reflect principles of first language acquisition if students bring to these activities relatable experiences which they have already linguistically represented. Such activities engage students in reading and writing where content and context support them in their attempts to actively understand and convey meaning in English. The end product of, rather than the prerequisite for, this meaningful reading and writing is competence in English

Effectiveness Compared: ASL Interpretation vs. Transliteration

Two kinds of interpretation are currently used to make the spoken language accessible to deaf students in regular college programs; namely, ASL Interpretation and Transliteration. To test the effectiveness of each kind, 43 students from several colleges of the City University of New York were divided into two groups by their preference for one or the other kind, and the groups divided according to level of education. Matched groups then received a narrative presentation and a lecture presentation, interpreted either one way or the other by experienced certified interpreters, and then answered questions on the material so received. The results showed that subjects achieved significantly higher scores when the material was interpreted into ASL than when it was transliterated (i.e. kept in English order by using manual signs for individual words and concepts). This was true even of those students who expressed preference for the latter kind of signing but received the material in ASL interpretation. Other factors addressed in. this study— education level, question type (literal or analytic), communicative competence (judged by qualified interviewers), and background knowledge (about the subject of the lecture)—did not affect scores as much as the kind of interpretation used and the kind of information presented (narrative, lecture) The implication is clear: Interpretation into ASL works better for all deaf students in mainstreamed college classes

An Alternative View of Education for Deaf Children: Part I

Quigley and Kretschmer (1982) asserted that the primary goal of education for deaf children should be literacy in English. This article presents an alternative view that there be two primary goals: (a) thinking and learning through the development of meaning-making and meaning-sharing capacities and (b) the acquisition of literacy in English. In this article, the first of these goals is viewed as the more fundamental since it facilitates the acquisition of knowledge while it simultaneously serves as the prerequisite for the acquisition of literacy in English. Because neither direct language instruction nor the exclusive use of English in sign will facilitate the development of meaning-making and meaning-sharing, this goal underscores the need for classroom practices that are content-focused and actively engage students through the use of the linguistic symbol system that appears to best convey meaning for deaf student—American Sign Language. (Part 2 of this article explores the process of English literacy acquisition by deaf learners.

Suggested Practices for Teaching Developmental Writing to Postsecondary Students Who Are Deaf

A LaGuardia Community College course in developmental writing for deaf students features small class size and teachers fluent in American Sign Language. Teaching practices include reading of model essays on topics of interest to deaf students, peer feedback on the first two drafts of writing assignments, and student reading aloud of essays in English-like sign language

Revision Strategies of Deaf Student Writers

Deaf high school students at different schools shared second drafts of their own narratives via an electronic bulletin board after conferencing with their respective teachers. This article characterizes the kinds of questions teachers asked during the conferences and the kinds of revisions the students made between first and second drafts. Results indicate that teachers most often ask questions that require student to provide more information; yet these questions do not affect revision as much as questions which require students to rephrase specific language. Students typically either added or substituted words or phrases that showed both similarities to and differences from the revision patterns of inexperienced writers with normal hearing. In the majority of cases, trained readers rated the deaf students\u27 revised drafts better than their first attempts, signifying the central role revision plays in the composition process

Comprehension Strategies of Two Deaf Readers

Strategies for reading comprehension used by two deaf college students as they discussed assigned readings with their teacher and classmates are here shown in examples categorized, tallied, and compared. Both were active users of strategies, and their pattern of strategy use was similar: interpreting, questioning, paraphrasing, and integrating were the strategies most used. The student reader who preferred expressing and receiving English-like sign manifested a higher proportion of inaccurate interpretations and paraphrases than did the student reader who preferred receiving and expressing American Sign Language (ASL), primarily because the former was unfamiliar with written linguistic cues and conventions of narrative prose, but also because of distractions from her personal experience. The comparison suggests that competence in reading is more closely related to text-based competencies than to the kind of face-to-face language the reader brings to the text

Academic Literacy for Deaf Postsecondary Students through Integrated Reading and Writing Instruction

Based on theoretical findings from the literature on the integration of reading and writing pedagogies used with hearing postsecondary students to advance academic literacy, this article offers a model of instruction for achieving academic literacy in developmental and freshman composition courses composed of deaf students. Academic literacy is viewed as the product of acts of composing in reading and writing which best transpire through reciprocal rather than separate reading and writing activities. Pedagogical practices based on theoretical findings and teacher experience are presented as a model of instruction, exemplified as artifacts in online supplementary materials and juxtaposed with practices used with hearing students. Differences between the practices are seen in accommodations for students who learn visually, the amount of guidance provided and more opportunities for extensive practice