Teaching Signed Speech to Nonverbal Children: Theory and Method

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Abstract
Many nonverbal mentally handicapped children can use signed speech (the simultaneous production of manual signs and spoken words) as an intermediate stage between spontaneous sign language and spontaneous speech. These children can be taught to communicate spontaneously in signed speech after they are taught sign production and sound production as independent skills. Because they use signs to communicate spontaneously, a transfer of spontaneity from signs to words occurs as they use signed speech. When the transfer is complete, the children fade the signs from their signed speech and with help from their teachers move on to spontaneous spoken language. This paper considers some of the data available on signed speech by nonverbal children and on the unsigned speech that grows out of it, discusses possible explanations for signed speech as development of linguistic functions, outlines the instructional implications of signed speech for language intervention programs, and makes suggestions for research that focus on the relation between the acquisition of language by nonverbal children and by normal infants.

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