Introduction / Gary Morgan, Bencie Woll -- Foundations of communication and the emergence of language in deaf children / Marc Marschark -- Phonology acquisition in Brazilian Sign Language / Lodenir Becker Karnopp -- Transcription as a tool for understanding : the Berkeley Transcription System for sign language research (BTS) / Nini Hoiting, Dan I. Slobin -- The development of Italian Sign Language (LIS) in deaf preschoolers / Elena Pizzuto -- The acquisition of verb agreement : pointing out arguments for the linguistic status of agreement in signed languages / Richard P. Meier -- The expression of grammatical relations by deaf toddlers learning ASL / Brenda Schick -- FACES : the acquisition of non-manual morphology in ASL / Judy Reilly, Diane Anderson -- Are young deaf children bilingual? / Beppie van den Bogaerde, Anne E. Baker -- Language emergence in a language-ready brain : acquisition / Judy Kegl -- The development of complex sentences in British Sign Language / Gary Morgan, Bencie Woll -- Afterword : a view from research on spoken language development / Elena V.M. Lieven -- Conclusions and directions for future research / Bencie Woll, Gary Morgan