ABSTRACT
The recent explosion of work on the acquisition of sign languages has made a valuable contribution to our understanding of the general processes by which children acquire a generative symbolic function. Several interesting issues have come to light as the literature on sign language acquisition has expanded. One such issue is related to the potential effects of mcx:lality of linguistic input on the course of language development and on differences that may exist between children acquiring a sign language and children learning a spoken language. We now know that signing and speaking children acquire language in much the same general fashion (Newport & Meier, 1985), moving from single-element utterances to two-element combinations, and then gradually to more complex, and adult-like, forms. What is not clear, however, is whether signing and speaking children follow this path at the same pace.
