ABSTRACT
The reeent rapid expansion in technical educational opportunities for the deaf has led to the need for a structured approach to the standardization and development of technical signs. A project designed to provide such a structured approach was established at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) in September, 1975. This project has as its goal the establishment and maintenance of a technical sign bank which can serve the communication needs of all deaf students, their instructors, and interpreters. A primary element of this project is a set of guidelines based on our knowledge of the structural characteristics of the lexicon of American Sign Language. At NTID planning and initial data collection has begun on research designed to explore the relationship between visual physiology and the structural characteristics of signe which this set of guidelines describes.
