Conceptual Sign Language as a Bridge Between English and Spanish

A deaf child from a non-English speaking family has a unique combination of communication problems. In order to facilitate communicative competence between the deaf child and those in his home and school environments, a trilingual approach to Total Communication has been developed. This approach utilizes Conceptual Sign Language as a communicative bridge for the deaf child, his Spanish-speaking family members, and the English-speaking signers at his school. This article describes some of the linguistic phenomena which have been observed directly in a setting where English and Spanish are combined with Conceptual Sign Language to promote comprehensible communication among parents, hearing-impaired children, and teachers.