Second verse, same as the first: On the use of signing systems in modern interventions for deaf and hard of hearing children in the USA

ABSTRACT

Signing systems that attempted to represent spoken language via manual signs – some invented, and some borrowed from natural sign languages – have historically been used in classrooms with deaf children. However, despite decades of research and use of these systems in the classroom, there is little evidence supporting their educational effectiveness. In this paper, the authors argue against the use of signing systems as instructional tools. This argument is based upon research demonstrating that (1) signing systems are less comprehensible to learners who rely upon signs rather than speech, (2) signing systems are used inconsistently by teachers, and (3) signing systems often unintentionally exhibit features of natural signed grammar, leading to input that does not accurately convey spoken languages, which is the original intention of these systems. Instead, the authors advocate for a return to the use of natural signed languages in classrooms educating deaf children, with creative uses of interpretation to provide those students who may prefer or benefit from spoken English with its presence in the classroom. In addition, we note ways in which future research may explore how natural sign languages and deaf adults may benefit the educational experiences of deaf children.

KEYWORDS:

• Deaf
• American sign language
• natural signed language
• signing systems
• signed English
• theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Unlocking the curriculum was a Johnson et al. (1989) manifesto that argued that oral and signed systems did not work and that educators should use bilingual-bicultural approaches to educating deaf children.

2 It is beyond the scope of this manuscript to explore the differences in grammatical structures of signed and spoken languages. For further information on this topic, see Liddell, 2003.

3 The size of their ASL vocabulary was not mentioned; the lack of discussion on this is a trend still worth talking about today.

4 Linguists debate how agreement operates in sign languages, with some preferring the concept of indicating verbs (Liddell, 2000). Here we use agreement as defined by Lillo-Martin and Meier (2011) for simplicity.

5 Though Jacobs, 1996, notes the significant barriers to achieving sign language fluency even after taking four semesters of sign language, which is often the maximum number of courses in a typical teacher training programme.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jessica A. Scott

Dr. Jessica A. Scott is an assistant professor in deaf education at Georgia State University. Previously, she worked as a high school teacher and K-8 reading specialist at schools for the deaf. She is interested in issues of bilingualism and literacy among deaf students. She is especially interested in ASL's relationship with English literacy, and disciplinary/content area literacy learning among high school learners.

Jonathan Henner

Jonathan Henner, Ed.D. is an assistant professor at University of North Carolina: Greensboro. His work thus far has taken three strands: a) he examines how different factors impact the development of language and cognitive skills in deaf and hard of hearing, b) he looks at how to best assess and measure the language skills of deaf and hard of hearing populations, and c) he examines the experiences that deaf academics have in academia and how professors, researchers, and scientists interact with deaf people.