Most of these systems share the common feature of
adapting some ASL signs for vocabulary items. They
invent new signs, for example, for plurals and as affix-
es for expressing verb tense and number agreement.
ASL has fewer such elements. Reduplicated move-
ment in ASL signals the progressive aspect, whereas
some sign systems prefer to invent more movements
to get closer to standard English, as in signing ‘‘The
dog is barking’’ (in ASL this would be signed as ‘‘Dog
bark, bark, bark’’).
Although sign systems are now an integral part of
the curriculum for most deaf children, educational
opportunities for the very young deaf child may be se-
verely limited if a child is not participating in an edu-
cational program and if the parents themselves have
limited knowledge of or use of sign systems.
Writing and Reading
Essays of deaf students frequently reveal patterns
of ungrammatical English usage. Discrepancies that
are similar to those of very young children developing
normally include failure to invert subject and auxilia-
ry when using a question, or omission of the verb ‘‘to
be’’ (the copula) in a sentence. But deaf children often
show other difficulties in mastering English syntax in
their writing. For example, a ten-year-old wrote: ‘‘We
perttey fun camp after home. The will week fun camp
after car.’’ An eighteen-year-old wrote: ‘‘A boy give to
a dog eat the bread’’ (Quigley and King 1982, pp.
444–445).
Some of the distinct syntactic structures that deaf
children generate involve a confusion between ‘‘have’’
and ‘‘be’’ (‘‘Mama have sick’’) and an incorrect pair-
ing of auxiliary with verb markers (‘‘Mary has washing
the dishes’’). In using the passive voice, deaf children
are likely to delete the word ‘‘by.’’ They are also likely
to delete conjunctions (‘‘Eddie carried, dumped
trash’’). Question formation is difficult (‘‘Who a girl
bought you a doll?’’). Relative pronouns may be delet-
ed and substitutions made (‘‘I patted the girl’s arm
was hurt’’).
In writing, deaf children’s essays often overuse
simple sentence structure. This may result from class-
room drills to encourage the development of syntactic
skills as well as spelling and punctuation rules. Read-
ing materials, however, more commonly have ad-
vanced sentence structure; they require more mastery
of complex sentences than are used in spoken conver-
sations.
Effectiveness of Oral and Manual
Educational Systems
Controversy still exists as to the relative effective-
ness of oral and manual educational systems. Some
intensive oral programs do report good English pro-
ficiency. Some total communication programs like-
wise report positive outcomes in English proficiency
for their graduates. Studies suggest that the academic
and social benefits of total communication are in-
creased and sustained when total communication is
used both in the school and in the home.
There is some agreement that the nature of the
child’s hearing loss and the degree of the child’s cog-
nitive ability may have a greater effect on successful
educational outcome than other intervention pro-
gram variables that are measured. At present, ‘‘un-
equivocal statements about the value of particular
approaches or the consequences of not following one
approach or another are unwarranted’’ (Musselman,
Lindsay, and Wilson 1988, p. 88).
Specialists agree that early interventions with
deaf infants and young children must emphasize
communication exchanges during activities. When
adults exchange signs in play contexts (such as
‘‘peekaboo’’ and pretend driving a toy car on a track)
and during daily routines, such as getting ready for
bed or going shopping for a toy, then young deaf chil-
dren begin to organize knowledge of events into men-
tal representations and cognitive categories. The
more generous the provision of such intimate and
motivating interactions, the more a child has an op-
portunity to attempt to express cognitive structures in
ASL or in oral language. Thus, organized, interpret-
able, and rich experiences within naturally occurring
social routines are necessary for language develop-
ment. Early interveners, often parents, need to pro-
vide abundant opportunities for signing. They need
to maintain eye contact and show vigorous interest in
the deaf baby’s attempts to communicate gesturally.
When the infant is playing with a toy, adults need to
compose their hands in front of the baby and provide
the sign for that toy. In contrast, toddlers will be de-
layed in learning signs if the parent takes a toy away
first and waits for the child to look up and see the par-
ent making the sign while holding the toy. Parents
can receive much help from written materials.
Teachers need to seat a deaf child so there is good
visibility. They must learn the optimal distance
(under one foot) to stand when trying to communi-
cate with a child using a hearing aid; and they must
learn to change a hearing aid battery and/or cord.
When a child with profound hearing loss wears two
hearing aids connected to a cassette-player-like box
suspended by straps at the waist, this apparatus is
sometimes called a ‘‘phonic ear.’’ Teachers may wear
a microphone that amplifies their voice for a hearing-
impaired child with poor lipreading and sign lan-
guage skills.180 HEARING LOSS AND DEAFNESS