Sign Language Input to Community Residents with Mental Retardation

Since teaching sign language to persons with mental retardation has increased dramatically during the past two decades, one might question whether the social environment is adequately prepared to teach it. Do significant others have the needed sign language competence to be effective models for sign language learning? Do they use sign language when interacting with learners of sign? In order to answer these two research questions, 17 adults with mental retardation who were currently living in 10 community residential settings and their 11 habilitation instructors were questioned and observed. Results showed that residents had been learning sign for an average of 3.19 years, could imitate an average of 16.47 signs, could spontaneously produce an average of 20 one-word signs and 14.71 sign combinations. Staff's sign language competence was only slightly better than that of the residents (mean = 23 signs). Furthermore, staff's use of sign during interactions with residents was dismally limited—an average of less than two signs per 30-minute observational period. In fact, during the large majority of time, staff failed to interact with residents at all. When staff did use sign, they did so when teaching the sign (2.4%), when interacting socially with the resident (2.9%), and when interacting with someone else in the presence of the resident (0.6%). The implications of these findings for sign language learning are discussed, as well as the need for and nature of staff training.