THE EXPRESSIVE COMMUNICATION OF HEARING MOTHERS AND DEAF INFANTS

This paper describes the expressive communication and language of seve n hearing mothers and their deaf infants. Severe-profound or profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss was identified in the infants by 7 months of age; intervention programs emphasizing use of signing syst ems plus speech were started before 9 months of age. Communication beh aviors during free play were observed when the infants were 12 and 18 months old. The frequency of the mothers' signing at 12 and 18 months was significantly correlated: mothers' patterns of frequent or infrequ ent signing were evident within several months of their infants' entry into programming. Mothers who signed most frequently reported that ot her adults (father and other relatives, friends) were also learning an d using signs. Frequency of sign production by the infants at 18 month s correlated significantly with frequency of sign production by the mo thers when the infants were 12 and 18 months. The mothers' reports of their typical frequency of signing and of the sign lexicon size of the ir infants failed to correlate significantly with observed performance .