This article examines research on various language and communication systems used with deaf children, and concludes that the two major approaches presently in use, oral English (OE) and manually coded English (MCE), have produced only limited results. A program of research to examine the effects of a third approach, American Sign Language (ASL), is proposed. The approach advocates the instructional use of ASL as a first language and the teaching of English as a second language to deaf children.
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