The LPI, a test for assessing communicative competence in a foreign or second language has been adapted for use as a Sign Communication Proficiency Interview (SCPI). 1 Discussion covers (a) an SCPI Rating Scale, (b) linguistic and cultural factors important for sign communicative competence, and (c) skills in communicating simultaneously in signing and speaking.

No abstract

addition to implementation of the SLPI with staff at numerous schools and with vocational rehabilitation staff, the SLPI has been implemented for state teacher licensure, with undergraduate and graduate deaf education students, and with potential interpreter training students. The SLPI Web site, www.ntid.rit.edu/slpi, includes information about these and other SLPI uses. 3 SLPI use is generally implemented within the context of an integrated sign language skills assessment-development program. This requires the development of policy and procedures documents that include sign language

The role of sensory attributes in a vocabulary learning task was investigated for a non-oral language. Deaf and hearing individuals, more or less skilled in the use of sign language, were asked to learn the English meanings of 22 invented signs which followed the rules of formation for signs in American Sign Language. Each sign stimulus was highly similar in formation to another sign in the set. It was expected that skilled signers would be less affected by this formational similarity because of their greater familiarity with the linguistic structure of sign language. Furthermore, it was suggested that skilled signers would form a visual-linguistic code for the signs while unskilled signers would produce a code from general visual-pictorial processes. These representation differences were expected to lead to qualitatively different error patterns in response to sign similarity. All expectations were confirmed. Skilled signers encoded invented signs in terms of linguistic structure, while unskilled individuals approached the signs as visual-pictorial events. Although both codes are sensory, one reflects linguistic abstraction, and the other does not.

This paper stresses the significant role of vision in the general developmental and educational processes for hearing-impaired students with and without visual impairments. Recommendations based on the results of a project on identification of visual impairments conducted by the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) are summarized, and suggestions are made for optimizing the use of vision for communication and learning by hearing-impaired students who do and do not have visual impairments. Cooperative efforts by professionals whose expertise is vision with professionals whose expertise is audition are essential if hearing-impaired students are to have the opportunity to use their vision as effectively as possible for communication and learning.