Use of sign language to facilitate spoken language acquisition in autistic children

Sign language is an alternative system of communication for nonverbal autistic children. The basic question is whether sign language facilitates language acquisition in autistic children. The data of these studies suggest that sign and total communication training resulted in quicker and more complete learning of vocabulary than speech training for many participants. This thesis will look at the studies relating to sign language and total communication training. These studies suggest that following the simultaneous use of spoken language and signing of words may have facilitated speech development in the autistic child. Many autistic children in these treatment programs have demonstrated increases in spoken language development, but it remain unclear whether simultaneous communication is facilitative of spoken language acquisition because of sign training, speech stimulation or a combined effect of speech and sign (Yoder & Layton, 1988). This thesis will examine the procedures and results of sign language and speech stimulation in autistic children.