Total Communication Use Among Elementary Teachers of Hearing-Impaired Children

This study examined the degree to which teachers' signed Manually Coded English messages represented their spoken utterances. Results indicate that educators in early elementary programs can, and do, provide a complete manual representation of their spoken English messages. This is in contrast with earlier research with middle school educators and parents of hearing-impaired children. Findings indicate that MCE proficiency may be influenced both by teacher attitude regarding the importance of signing a complete message and the degree to which program supervisors monitor teacher implementation of clearly specified MCE policies.

Findings from this study have implications for programs to train teachers in using MCE and also provide information on the effects of program policy on teacher use of sign language.