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What is learnable in manually coded English sign systems?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Brenda Schick  and
Mary Pat Moeller
Brenda Schick*
Affiliation:
Boys Town National Institute
Mary Pat Moeller
Affiliation:
Boys Town National Institute
*
Brenda Schick, 202 Barkley Center, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583-0732. email: BSCHlCK@unlinfo.unl.edu
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Abstract

It has been suggested that manual sign systems designed to represent English are unlearnable because they are not natural languages. In order to examine this premise, the present study examines reading achievement and expressive English skills of 13 profoundly deaf students, aged 7;1 to 14;8, who were educated using only a manually coded English (MCE) sign system. Linguistic structures selected for analysis were designed to reflect unique characteristics of English, as well as those common to English and American Sign Language, and to obtain a broad picture of English skills. Results showed that the deaf students had expressive English skills comparable to a hearing control group for some features of English that reflected syntactic and lexical skills. They showed substantial deficits in inflectional morphological skills that were not predictive of the complexity of their language. The results reveal which aspects of MCE appear to be learnable and which appear problematic for deaf students.

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Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , July 1992 , pp. 313 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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