Sign Language Studies

Available research suggesting severe delays in the language acquisition of deaf children has not often considered that the delay may be specific to the English language and not representative of the child's actual linguistic competence. Though systems of manually coded English intend to represent English visually, English is an auditory-vocal language. Deaf children exposed to English through spatial-gestural signals may employ the modality in a different manner than that presupposed by makers of the manual codes. This case study of two deaf children presents preliminary support for such a supposition. The children were administered a standardized test of English competence and were asked to tell a story from pictures. For comparison a hearing child of the same age was asked to perform the latter task also. The form and nature of the deaf children's language in story telling was compared to those of the hearing child's and to their own responses in the test of English competence. Evidence was found that the deaf children modified the nature of some of the manual signs for English morphemes in a systematic way, suggesting a linguistic competence that is more commensurate with their cognitive age.