From Gesture to Language in Hearing and Deaf Children

Virginia Volterra and Carol Erting have made an important contribu- tion to knowledge with this selection of studies on language acquisi- tion. Collections of studies clustered more or less closely around a topic are plentiful, but this one is 1 nique. Volterra and Erting had a clear plan in mind when making their selection. Taken together, the studies make the case that language is inseparable from human inter- action and communication and, especially in infancy, as much a matter of gestural as of vocal behavior. The editors have arranged the papers in five coherent sections and written an introduction to each section in addition to the expected general introduction and conclu- sion. No introductory course in child and language development will be complete without this book. Presenting successively studies of hearing children acquiring speech languages, of deaf children acquiring sign languages, of hear- ing children of deaf parents, of deaf children of hearing parents, and of hearing children compared with deaf children, Volterra and Erting give one a wider than usual view oflanguage acquisition. It is a view that would have been impossible not many years ago - when the primary languages of deaf adults had received neither recognition nor respect.