The role of the intermediary in legal proceedings in England and Wales is traced back to a recommendation in 1989 that there should be an ‘interlocutor’ for vulnerable people involved in criminal proceedings. This article sets out the statutory and procedural provisions for the appointment and deployment of intermediaries. The functions of the intermediary in legal proceedings are described and illustrated with cases from the authors’ experiences and legal judgments handed down in criminal, family and immigration and asylum proceedings. Suggestions are made as to how psychiatrists can best assist the courts when it is considered that the appointment of an intermediary is necessary. Attention is drawn to the importance of psychiatrists, psychologists and intermediaries working collaboratively with each other and with other professionals in order that vulnerable people who have communication difficulties, whether as a result of age, some form of mental disorder, intellectual disability, deafness or for some other reason, can be assisted so as to participate effectively and without disadvantage in legal proceedings.

This article focuses on the use of the terms “deaf” and “deaf-mute” in the interwar Romanian press to explore the multiplicity of meanings attached to this condition in different types of public discourse. My aim is to place in the larger context of that period what meanings become most prominent in newspapers and other forms of popular press, why, and with what consequences. I offer an exploration of these discourses to better appreciate how the reading public, both able-bodied and disabled, saw disability represented. Rendering the very multiplicity of meanings attached to “deafness” visible in the relevant context is an important goal for this essay; it allows us to better understand the continued imprecision and stigmatizing framework in how Romanian society engaged with the deaf. I also explore what space existed for the deaf community to shape their own self-representations. Placing ableist discourses in dialogue with the voices of the deaf community is an important aim, as a method to de-essentialize the predominant ableist discourses and normalize accounting for disability as a significant element of modern history.

Early language development has rarely been studied in hearing children with deaf parents who are exposed to both a spoken and a signed language (bimodal bilinguals). This study presents longitudinal data of early communication and vocabulary development in a group of 31 hearing infants exposed to British Sign Language (BSL) and spoken English, at 6 months, 15 months, 24 months and 7 years, in comparison with monolinguals (exposed to English) and unimodal bilinguals (exposed to two spoken languages). No differences were observed in early communication or vocabulary development between bimodal bilinguals and monolinguals, but greater early communicative skills in infancy were found in bimodal bilinguals compared to unimodal bilinguals. Within the bimodal bilingual group, BSL and English vocabulary sizes were positively related. These data provide a healthy picture of early language acquisition in those learning a spoken and signed language simultaneously from birth.

In this study, our objective was to explore the impact of hearing loss on the conceptual system underlying word meaning. We collected perceptual strength norms for 200 Italian words from early deaf individuals with limited or no access to auditory information and compared them to existing norms from hearing individuals. For each word, participants provided perceptual strength ratings for each perceptual modality. Our results revealed a significant reduction of the auditory modality in the norms provided by deaf individuals compared to the hearing population. However, we did not observe an overall decrease in reported perceptual strength. Interestingly, we found a heightened involvement of other sensory modalities accompanied by reduced modality exclusivity in the conceptualization of words, indicating that deaf individuals heavily rely on information coming from the other perceptual modalities to form concepts. These findings suggest that hearing loss leads to a reorganisation of word conceptualization, characterised by increased multisensoriality. Importantly, although diminished, the auditory modality remains present, suggesting that deaf individuals can still infer auditory-associated knowledge about words to some extent.

Executive functions (EFs) in both regulatory and meta-cognitive contexts are important for a wide variety of children’s daily activities, including play and learning. Despite the growing literature supporting the relationship between EF and language, few studies have focused on these links during everyday behaviours. Data were collected on 208 children from 6 to 12 years old of whom 89 were deaf children (55% female; M = 8;8; SD = 1;9) and 119 were typically hearing children (56% female, M = 8;9; SD = 1;5). Parents completed two inventories: to assess EFs and language proficiency. Parents of deaf children reported greater difficulties with EFs in daily activities than those of hearing children. Correlation analysis between EFs and language showed significant levels only in the deaf group, especially in relation to meta-cognitive EFs. The results are discussed in terms of the role of early parent–child interaction and the relevance of EFs for everyday conversational situations.

Scientific and technical words in Astronomy are often absent in many sign languages. To alleviate this problem, we present the first online dictionary which includes a comparative list of signs which can be used especially in sign language for countries in which they have not been yet defined. After a brief summary of the history and evolution of the sign language in France, we show that many common signs can be adopted as universal, taking into account the individual heritage of each country.

Children who receive cochlear implants develop spoken language on a protracted timescale. The home environment facilitates speech-language development, yet it is relatively unknown how the environment differs between children with cochlear implants and typical hearing. We matched eighteen preschoolers with implants (31-65 months) to two groups of children with typical hearing: by chronological age and hearing age. Each child completed a long-form, naturalistic audio recording of their home environment (appx. 16 hours/child; >730 hours of observation) to measure adult speech input, child vocal productivity, and caregiver-child interaction. Results showed that children with cochlear implants and typical hearing were exposed to and engaged in similar amounts of spoken language with caregivers. However, the home environment did not reflect developmental stages as closely for children with implants, or predict their speech outcomes as strongly. Home-based speech-language interventions should focus on the unique input-outcome relationships for this group of children with hearing loss.

With the United States’ entrance into the First World War, linguistic and cultural cohesiveness became imperative, compelling everyone—from immigrants with foreign accents to people with speech problems and hearing loss—to “sound American” by fluently speaking the language of their flag.

This article examines lip-reading, speech, and auricular training prescribed to deaf and hard-of-hearing children as well as for servicemen deafened in the war to demonstrate how World War I demanded all Americans to contribute to and participate in shared national soundscapes, regardless of their hearing status. Use of American Sign Language was considered a conspicuous sign of one’s failure to integrate into hearing society, and it shared parallels with immigrants who failed to learn English and fully assimilate into American culture. Indeed, rehabilitation of deafened soldiers of the First World War through speech training and lip-reading instruction at Hospital No. 11 at Cape May, New Jersey, coincided with broader national efforts to improve Americans’ speech and language use, and in turn, their patriotism and productivity.

This article discusses speech and hearing disabled Americans’ claims to citizenship during World War I, and the ways American policymakers sought to rehabilitate American soldiers treated in the U.S. Army Section of Defects of Hearing and Speech—or those classified after the Section’s closure as deaf, hard-of-hearing, or “speech defective.” Ultimately, I argue that one’s aural communication abilities were indicators of worthiness in American society and that this was especially the case during World War I, when tensions about speech and hearing heightened within and outside of the Deaf community due to significant pressures placed on Americans to show support for the war. Such pressures also shaped the experiences of American soldiers treated for speech and hearing disabilities after 1918, by suggesting that their service to the United States could not be complete until they were successfully rehabilitated through lip-reading training. To be able to aurally communicate signified the veterans’ sound citizenship in a literal and a metaphorical sense.