Most of the changes are fine. But there are two big losses in translation: [ A strong tremor in her hand makes it impossible for her to use American Sign Lang

Most of the changes are fine. But there are two big losses in translation: [ A strong tremor in her hand makes it impossible for her to use American Sign Language. ] --> [ Her hand shakes so she does not do sign language. ] No, she _cannot_ do sign language. The difference between "does not" and "cannot" is big. Rebecca gives no explanation for this corruption of the original meaning. [ Her parents think she recognizes a couple dozen signs. ] --> [ Her parents think she knows some signs. ] She cannot make signs with her hands, but she can recognize signs. The word "recognizes" is important because it expresses that she can in fact use sign language, but only one way -- to receive communication, not to send it. Changing this to "knows" eliminates this information and makes this sentence contradict with the preceding one. It is now clear that "do sign language" in the preceding sentence also obscures this information; "do" is vague and hard to understand. How many is "some"? "Some" could mean 3, or 30, or 300. Again Rebecca's explanation is lacking; this is described as "replacement of numbered items" but in fact it is just straight deletion of all numbers. So, I would write: [ Her hand shakes so she cannot speak in sign language. Her parents think she understands about 20 signs. ] This is clear, easy to read, doesn't needlessly destroy information, and in my opinion is easier to read than Rebecca's simplification.