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Paper Abstract: Development of sign language competency and communication skills in children. Conflicting approaches to education of deaf children or children with vocal language impairments. Educational philosophy. American Sign Language (ASL) bilingual, bicultural approach. How children acquire spoken language. Effective strategies for teaching ASL. Paper Introduction: Sign Language Development in Children While sign languages are generally regarded as languages that are most useful for individuals with hearing or verbal communication impairments, research suggests that such languages are also useful in other contexts (Drasgow, 1998). This brief report will examine the literature identifying the development of sign language competency and communication skills in children. Studies demonstrating the efficacy of sign language for deaf children, hearing children born to deaf parents, and children with normal aural competency will be assessed. Recently, it has been argued that American Sign Language (ASL) should be the first language of some deaf (or otherwise communication impaired) children and that English should be taught as a second language (Drasgow, 1998). The search for the Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Drasgow, E. American Sign Language as a pathway to linguisticcompetence. Theliterature suggests that very young children are able to recognize signedlanguage and to model signing as a precursor to the development oflinguistic skills in the language. Children generally begin to acquire spoken language competencythrough babbling and the production of sounds that will eventually become adiscernable language. During monthly home visits, the parentsdemonstrated on videotape how their children formed the different signs intheir lexicons. Parents are seen as an excellent locus ofinstruction, particularly in cases where deaf parents have hearingchildren. This isdue in part to the fact that ASL represents an opportunity for youngchildren to incorporate language acquisition with the development of earlyrhythmical motor behaviors. (1998). British Medical Journal, 318 (7196),1491+ Jitendra, A., Da Costa, J., Policare, E., & Wetherhold, B. Grove, N., & Dockrell, J. Using signs and gestures is seen as focusing behaviorallydisordered children on control of their fine and gross motor activities andas exerting a sense of control over movement in general. Benefits of using signs in the classroominclude reducing conversation and expanding on simple cues and singles thatmost teachers normally employee. (2 ). Larkin (2 ) states that the area of the brainwhich ordinarily controls spoken language is genetically suited to handleany kind of language in the primary modality of language learning, Thesymbols presented visually for words and no-words involve rapidly changingconfigurations of the hands, so this area of the brain may be able toprocess any kind of stimulus that changes rapidly over time. Studies demonstrating the efficacy of sign language fordeaf children, hearing children born to deaf parents, and children withnormal aural competency will be assessed. Research suggests that individuals withintellectual impairments who use manual signs to augment or substitute forspeech rarely progress beyond the stage of simple signs and that word orderis particularly problematic. Masataka, N. Infants appear ready to detect sign motherese characteristicswithout specific experience in this language modality. Hindley, P, & Parkes, R. Journal ofSpeech, Language, and Hearing Research, 43 (2), 3 9 - 334. Young children'sacquisition of the movement aspect in American Sign Language. Preventing School Failure, 41 (3), 137 - 144+. Sign Language Development in Children While sign languages are generally regarded as languages that aremost useful for individuals with hearing or verbal communicationimpairments, research suggests that such languages are also useful in othercontexts (Drasgow, 1998). Drasgow (1998) suggests further that children who will be taught ASLor other sign languages should begin learning the language early in life.Even before students are placed in preschool programs, according to Drasgow(1998), parents and others should begin to work with children to developgestural language skills. Larkin, M. Sign language can serve to maintainbehavior control and foster self-esteem, attention, on-task behavior,communication and academics. Indeed, children who aredeaf or otherwise experiencing difficulties in verbal communication tend to"babble" with hand motions and other gestures that are indicative ofdesires, thoughts, feelings and wishes (Drasgow, 1998). A study by Jitendra, Da Costa, Policare, and Weatherhold (1997)advanced the idea that verbal children who suffer from behavioral disordersmay benefit from learning ASL. Children crating language: HowNicaraguan Sign Language acquired a spatial grammar. Instructionalsessions should provide continued practice on previously taught signs aswell as consistent feedback and reinforcement via specific verbal praisefor both correct responses and effort. When deafchildren or children with communication impairments are considered, Drasgow(1998) recommends that introduction of ASL or another sign language shouldbe undertaken by age 6 months; deaf and hearing children alike are capable,at this early age, of producing similar types and quantities ofcommunicative "content." When hearing or vocally impaired children aregiven access to a natural language (such as ASL), they acquire it in anormal and predictable manner. ASL and other sign language skills are acquired inroughly the same manner as verbal language skills are acquired. Grove and Dockrell (2 ) examined the development of proficiency insign language among children with intellectual impairments - among group ofchildren seen by educators as ideal candidates for learning to sign as aprimary communication mode. ASL is a language with a phonology base in place. (2 ). Drasgow(1998) says that the conflict is currently embodied in a debate betweenadvocates of the ASL bilingual/bicultural approach and advocates of theManually Coded English (MCE)/Simultaneous Communication approach. This brief discussion ahs highlighted the themes in the literaturethat focus on the development of sign language skills in children. Noting that certain features of language development appear to becommon to both speech and sign, Grove and Dockrell (2 ) found that aschildren acquired competency and fluency in sign use, they developed aconcept of "agency" which coincides with that of syntactic subject. ASL also involvesmanual articulation and movement that is salient to the visual system andincludes four basic articulatory parameters: 1) hand configuration, or the shape of each hand; 2) place of articulation, or the area on the signer's body where the sign is produced; 3) orientation of the articulator(s), or the orientation of the hand(s) in relation to the body; and, 4) movement, or the motion of the hands from one point to another in the signing space (Drasgow, 1998). Recently, it has been argued that American Sign Language (ASL) shouldbe the first language of some deaf (or otherwise communication impaired)children and that English should be taught as a second language (Drasgow,1998). As significantly, the motivational aspectof curiosity and novelty inherent in sign language makes it appealing tostudents. Bonvillian and Siedlecki (1998) conducted a research study to examinethe acquisition of the movement aspect of ASL longitudinally in nine youngchildren of deaf parents. Based on this study, Bonvillian and Siedlecki (1998) contended thatyoung children, including preschoolers and toddlers) are capable oflearning ASL rapidly. (1999). Speech and sign language trigger similar brainactivity. Deaf and otherimpaired children who have difficulty in developing spoken language areseen as able to achieve language normally. For deaf and vocally impaired children,children with intellectual or behavioral disorders, and normally developedchildren alike, sign language is a viable first or second language skill. The first year of life is seen as most importantin language acquisition because the recognition and discrimination of therelevant phonological building blocks of a language provides entry to themorphological and syntactical components of the language. (2 1). Young children, whether deaf or vocally impaired, are seen byDrasgow (1998) as most likely to benefit from an ASL approach to thedevelopment of a gestural language. (1997).Teaching sign language to children with behavior disorders: A directinstruction approach. Results indicated that the children correctly produced 61.4percent of the movements that were present in the adult sign models. Jitendra, et al (1997) believe that to teach sign language tochildren effectively, direct instruction (i.e., a systematic instructionalapproach applicable with a wide range of learners (is desirable). In modeling, teachers physicallymodel the signs to be learned in the lesson. Modeling and repetition, takentogether as instructional strategies, are capable of reinforcing signlanguage skill and accuracy. For deaf children, the early acquisitionof sign language helps the child to accept their deafness as a cultural andlinguistic difference and not as a disability. Drasgow (1998) claims that the ASL bilingual/bicultural approach isrooted in part, in the growing metatheoretical acceptance of the culturalmode of deafness and/or vocal impairment by both deaf and hearingindividuals. The study suggeststhat: 1) sign language is a valid language; 2) infants are able andinterested in responding to sign language and able to model signedcommunication; and, 3) that sign language is useful as a first or secondlanguage to children with and without hearing or communication impairments. The processengages both the body and the brain, increasing attention span amongchildren with attentional disorders as well. (1998). However, children tend to acquire ASLmovements at often widely different rates. It is a complete language, withall the properties of other languages in the world, but a language that hasevolved independently of and separately from English. Journal ofSpeech, Language, and Hearing Research, 41 (3), 588 - 6 3. Speaking sign language from birthcan make deaf children confident. Variations on ASLinclude British Sign Language as well as sing languages specific to othercultures and/or linguistic groups; Senghas and Coppola (2 1), for example,described Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) as a new sign language that ahsdeveloped over the past 2 years as sequential cohorts of learnerssystematized the language's grammar. ASL is a bona fide language with astructure different from spoken English. Students then model the signthemselves in guided practice in controlled materials. References Bonvillian, J. Larkin (2 ) maintains that teachers of young children who arelearning ASL should understand that brain regions thought to be dedicatedsolely to making sense of sound may in fact be involved in the processingof sign language as well. Interestingly, Masataka (1998) found that hearing as well as deafchildren as young as age 6 are capable of acquiring competence in signing.This researcher studied six-month-old deaf and hearing children exposed toidentical scripts signed in Japanese Sign Language (JSL) by deaf mothers.The experiment demonstrated that infants show greater attentional andaffective responsiveness to infant-directed signing than mother-directedsigning. Whilethe production accuracy of the movement aspects of signs did not improveover the course of the study, the number and complexity of movementsproduced by children did increase as they aged and their vocabularies grewin size. Directinstruction is characterized by a mastery learning paradigm and astructured teacher-directed approach in which skills are taught usingcarefully designed and detailed instructional procedures. One of the most effective strategies identified by Jitendra, et al(1997) for teaching ASL is modeling. Senghas, A., & Coppola, M. The search for the most effective way to educate deaf children orchildren with vocal language impairments has been characterized by ahistory of conflict among advocates of different approaches. The approachinvolves teachers working with students in small groups, requires carefulmonitoring of student performance, and the provision of immediate andcorrective feedback. Otherrelational and grammatical concepts tend to develop later, with expressivelanguage functions among the last linguistic skills to develop. It also represents profound differences in educational philosophy. Regardless of the presenting problems ofchildren learning to communication via sign language, these researchersbelieve that the pedagogical or instructional approach must include theseelements in order for competency in the language system to develop. This brief report will examine the literatureidentifying the development of sign language competency and communicationskills in children. The Lancet, 356 (9246), 1989+. Exceptional Children, 64 (3), 329 - 343. Similar benefits of ASL orother sign language acquisition also accrue to children who experienceother communication impairments. D., & Siedlecki, T. To examine the production of spontaneous signsin naturalistic settings among children with intellectual impairments,these researchers conducted a non-experimental observation of a sample of1 children with mild to moderate intellectual impairments. The children observed by Grove and Dockrell (2 ) constituted anatypical population which experiences difficulty in acquiring and usingspeech. For children learning to communication through signlanguage, "babbling" through gesture is an appropriate "first step" in theacquisition of a more complex language system. Thedebate is more than a discussion over which language or code is the best touse. Learning tosign is a complex and time-consuming process. Learning is facilitated by using a task-analysisapproach. These researchers found that bi-directional movements tend to be produced more accurately by young childrenthan uni-directional movements. Hindley and Parkes (1999) believe that for deaf children or childrenborn to deaf parents, lack of access to early, effective, and sophisticatedlanguage has negative consequences for all aspects of psychologicaldevelopment and cognitive development. (1998). Sign language provides childrenwith a sophisticated inner language which in turn allows them to acquireother languages such as English. Parents also demonstrated how they formed or modeled thesesame signs. Developmental Psychology, 34(2),241 - 247. Perception of motherese in Japanese SignLanguage by 6-month-old hearing infants. Psychological Science,12 (4), 323+. Multisign combinations by childrenwith intellectual impairments: An analysis of language skills. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.