Humans' first languages may have been expressed through sign. Today, sign languages have been found around the world, including communities that do not have access to education or literacy. In addition to serving as a primary medium of communication for deaf communities, they have become
among the most popular choices for second language study by hearing students. The status of sign languages as complex and complete languages that are clearly the linguistic "equal" of spoken languages is no longer questioned. Research on the characteristics of visual languages has blossomed since
the 1960s, and careful study of deaf children's development of sign language skills is pursued to obtain information to promote deaf children's development. Equally important, the study of how children learn sign language provides excellent theoretical insights into how the human brain acquires and
structures sign languages. In the same sense that cross-linguistic research has led to a better understanding of how language affects development, cross-modal research allows us to study acquisition of language in the absence of a spoken phonology.
The contributors to this volume are leading scholars and researchers of the acquisition and development of sign languages. The authors provide cogent summaries of what is known about early gestural development, interactive processes adapted to visual communication, and the processes of semantic,
syntactic, and pragmatic development in sign. They address theoretical as well as applied questions, often with a focus on aspects of language that are (or perhaps or not) related to the modality of the language.
Readers, especially if they also read thecompanion volume Advances in the Spoken Language Development of Deaf and Hard-of Hearing Children, will have access to cutting-edge information about deaf children's language development as well as a deeper understanding of linguistic structures, modality
effects, and human po

• 1: Marc Marschark, Brenda Schick, and Patricia Elizabeth Spencer: Understanding Sign Language Development of Deaf Children


• 2: Dan I. Slobin: Issues of Linguistic Typology in the Study of Sign Language Development of Deaf Children


• 3: V. Volterra, J.M. Iverson, and M. Castrataro: The Development of Gesture in Hearing and Deaf Children


• 4: Patricia E. Spencer and Margaret Harris: Patterns and Effects of Language Input to Deaf Infants and Toddlers from Deaf and Hearing Mothers


• 5: Brenda Schick: Acquiring a Visually-Motivated Language: Evidence from Diverse Learners


• 6: Diane Anderson: Lexical Development of Deaf Children Acquiring Signed Languages


• 7: Nini Hoiting: Deaf Children Are Verb Attenders: Early Sign Vocabulary Development in Dutch Toddlers


• 8: Carol A. Padden: Learning to Fingerspell Twice: Young Signing Children's Acquisition of Fingerspelling


• 9: Richard P. Meier: The Form of Early Signs: Explaining Signing Children's Articulatory Development


• 10: Diane Lillo-Martin and Deborah Chen Pichler: Acquisition of Syntax in Signed Languages


• 11: Judy Reilly: How Faces Come To Serve Grammar: The Development of NonManual Morphology in American Sign Language


• 12: Barbara Shaffer: Deaf Children's Acquisition of Modal Terms


• 13: Gary Morgan: The Development of Narrative Skills in British Sign Language


• 14: Jenny L. Singleton and Dianne D. Morgan: Natural Signed Language Acquisition within the Social Context of the Classroom