The study reported on in this paper examined lexical variation and change in South African Sign Language (SASL) within a particular "school-lect", a term which refers to the transmission of particular varieties of sign language in schools for deaf children. The study looked at the amount of variation within the current school-lect, as well as the extent to which adults retain their school-lect, and how this school-lect differs from that of the children's school-lect. A picture elicitation task, incorporating some English/Afrikaans words, was used to elicit signs for 52 lemmas, extracted from the Woodward (1978) list, from five groups of signers, ranging from 8 to 68 years old, who currently attend, or attended the Dominican School for the deaf in Cape Town. The signs for each lemma were described in terms of the parameters of handshape, palm orientation, location and movement and compared with each other. Signs that did not differ in any parameter were classified as identical, signs that differed in one parameter were classified as similar, otherwise they were classified as different. Signs that were identical or similar were considered to form one sign type. There was considerable variation within and across groups in the use of particular signs. The most within group variation came from the 16 to 18 year olds, while the most between group variation was found between the youngest group, the 8 to 10 year olds, and the oldest group. Focus group interviews were held with the older groups of signers to identify participants' attitudes towards lexical variation in general, and possible reasons for lexical variation within the Deaf community from their particular school. The present study is therefore relevant, both for the understanding of lexical variation in SASL, as well as for the documentation of regional varieties that are under pressure to standardize.