Manual Communication—A Basic Text and Workbook with Practical Exercises (review)

Reviews It also seems highly questionable that the author addresses as his central issue mother-child interaction and devotes much space to sign language but fails to present an adequate review of the literature on either topic. He is apparently totally unaware of research in the former area, his main subject and incomplete and out of date in the latter. These problems mar three very good points made by the author: (a) analytic and synthetic methods of language teaching such as use of the Fitzgerald Key, AppleTree, or the Rhode Island curriculum of 1971 are limited and artificial and do not give enough attention to either the cultural or interpersonal aspects of language development to be bases of teaching; (b) normal language acquisition takes place within conversational interactions; and (c) "too much emphasis on making the child produce language initially, instead of giving him a large background of language comprehension . . . impedes general intuitive understanding" (p. 34). These are important points. It is a shame that they are not addressed in a more successful way. Madeline Maxwell, Ph.D. Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech Communication University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX 78712 I Have A Sister, My Sister Is Deaf, Jeanne Whitehouse Peterson, illustrated by Deborah Ray, 2Si pp., $4.95, Harper & Row Publishers, New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London, 1977. The thing I like most about childrens' books is that the author assumes the reader brings to it no preconceived ideas on the subject. 7 Have A Sister, My Sister Is Deaf, by Jeanne Peterson, directly , simply, and convincingly tells through her hearing sister, the story of a little girl who is deaf. "There are not many sisters like mine." As the story is told, the young reader will find answers to questions about deafness, i.e., "Does it hurt to be deaf?" "No," I say, "Her ears don't hurt, but her feelings do when people do not understand." Then later our narrator tries to understand for herself why her deaf sister "sometimes cries at night, when it is dark and there is no light in the hall." "I try plugging up my ears in the dark, then I wonder , is it the same?" The daily experiences of two young sisters, one deaf, the other hearing, (I am the one who listens. She is the one who watches.) as told by Ms. Peterson herself, the sister of a deaf girl, makes a charming and informative story. It is very good read-aloud material for children five to eight years. The book is illustrated in black and white by Deborah Ray; the characters are presented as round-faced children of rather solemn expression . However, the overall effect is one of subdued realism. I think to be deaf is to see the world in subdued tones, at least some of the time. Jacqueline Cosgrove Shields Manual Communication—A Basic Text and Workbook with Practical Exercises, Dean A. Christopher, Ph.D., 530 pp., $14.50, University Park Press, International Publishers in Science and Medicine, Chamber of Commerce Building, Baltimore, Md. 21202, 1976. At last a teaching manual to do for signed English what Fant's book did for Ameslan. This text is designed to teach signs and fingerspelling in an English context—a method the author labels simultaneous. Fingerspelling, numbers , and the approximately 700 signs taught in this book are presented in the first 44 lessons. The remaining four lessons consist of practice dialogue for clinicians who interview deaf clients. Each of the first 44 chapters is divided into three parts: (a) First, a visual illustration of the letter or sign is given along with a written description of how the letter or sign is formed, (b) Next, sentences are presented for practice in encoding, (c) Finally, in a truly unique feature, signed and fingerspelled sentences are provided for practice in decoding. The visual illustrations are necessarily small and, especially when depicting motion, of only mediocre quality . However, the written descriptions of the signs are excellent. This is the best text for teaching signs in an English context that this reviewer has seen to date. It is well designed and could perhaps be used as a self-teaching manual for...