It was distributed free to Deaf people in 41 countries. Today's SignWriting publications would not be the same, if it were not for the research and development done through the publication of the SignWriter Newspaper. The Newspaper had historic influence on how SignWriting is written today. The first Deaf journalists on the Newspaper staff were pioneers. They were the first group of Deaf adults to truly become skilled at writing their native language.
New ideas take time for acceptance, something the staff had no choice but to learn the hard way.
But there were many strong supporters of SignWriting too. The Newspaper was a catalyst for debating the issue of Sign Language Literacy. It was also a catalyst for developing a way to type signs . In 1981, there was no way to type SignWriting. It took 3 months to write one issue by hand.