ABSTRACT
The study of sign language is intriguing from many perspectives. It holds promise of providing new insights into the structure of human language and communication systems, the nature of human perception, memory and production mechanisms, and the relationship between language, meaning, and culture. The study of sign language acquisition has an important additional dimension, as it is quite clear that information gained from research in this area has the power to influence the techniques and educational approaches used with young deaf children. In fact, until recently, the majority of research investigations on sign language were comparisons of educational effectiveness, with a major goal being the determination of whether or not knowledge of sign language affects speech and speechreading abilities. Studies of signing deaf children compared to nonsigning deaf children were often confounded by parental deafness—those children who signed from an early age had deaf parents, while those who were oral from an early age had hearing parents. Such research often failed to consider the psychological, linguistic, and cognitive skills of the children being studied.
