Origins of the American Deaf-World: Assimilating and Differentiating Societies and Their Relation to Genetic Patterning
The Deaf-World in the United States has major roots in a triangle of New England Deaf communities that flourished early in the last century: Henniker, New Hampshire; Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts; and Sandy River Valley, Maine. The social fabric of these communities differed, a reflection of language and marriage practices that were underpinned, we hypothesize, by differences in genetic patterning. In order to evaluate that hypothesis, this article uses local records and newspapers, genealogies, the silent press, Edward Fay’s 1898 census of Deaf marriages, and Alexander Graham Bell’s notebooks to illuminate the Henniker Deaf community for the first time; it also builds on prior work concerning the Vineyard community.
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Young Children’s Acquisition of the Formational Aspects of American Sign Language Signs: Parental Report Findings
The early sign language acquisition of nine young children of sign-using parents was examined in a longitudinal study. In monthly home visits, the parents demonstrated on videotape how their children formed the signs that they had acquired since the previous visit. Each of these signs was transcribed, using the notation system developed by Stokoe, into its formational aspects of location, handshape, and movement. The location, handshape, and movement cheremes (sign phonemes) of the children’s signs were then analyzed for accuracy of production, order of onset, production frequency, and patterns of errors or systematic substitutions. The results of these analyses are interpreted as indicating several distinct trends in young children’s acquisition of sign formational aspects.
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Manuel Tinoco
This study examines the contribution to deaf history of Manuel Tinoco, a hitherto unknown deaf student at Spain’s National School for Deaf-Mutes and the Blind. Along the way, it sheds considerable light on the day-to-day life at this establishment during the 1870s.
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