Sign Language with Students with Severe/Profound Mental Retardation: How Effective is it?

The scope, rationale for use, intervention practices, and effectiveness of sign language with school-aged students with severe / profound mental retardation (SPMR) were studied. Findings suggest that sign language is the communication alternative selected for more than one quarter of the students studied, although the rationales presented for its selection were not usually based on a full consideration of factors that indicate its use or prognosticate its success. Additionally, the educational programs as stated in the students’ most recent I.E.P. (goals, lexicon, methodologies) included in this study do not reflect “best practices”. This finding confounds our ability to evaluate the efficacy of sign language with this population. Results do suggest that given “common practices” emerging from this study, sign language is not an effective communicative alternative for most of these students who are severely handicapped. The need for practice-sensitive research growing out of current theory is needed before one can adequately evaluate the efficacy of sign language with students with SPMR.