LANGUAGE MATTERS 5. The time of the signs

TREVOR STEVENS, Lecturer in Mental Handicap H aver i ng Tech n ica I Col leg e, Ro mf ord, Essex

Anyone currently working in the field of mental handicap must surely be aware that we are living in a “Time of the Signs”. In schools, hospitals and training centres up and down the country more and more mentally handicapped people are communicating by some form of sign language. What has caused this growing interest in non-vocal communication?

A chimpanzee named Washoe is partly responsible. Washoe lived in a caravan at the bottom of the Gardners’ garden (Gardner and Gardner, 1969) but what made her even more remarkable was that she learned to communicate with her human companions by using a considerable number of gestures from American Sign Language (ASL). Psychologists, pre- viously content with the almost magical brief of trying to produce habits from a rat, turned their interest to the study of language acquisition with renewed vigour. Until then, it had scarcely been contested that the most appropriate form of communication in all cases was SPEECH.

Speech, however, is only one medium of language and an individual may be more suited to using either a sign or symbol system. Let us examine some of the differences between these systems.

Sign systems

ings, by painting pictures in the air. THE MAKATON VOCABULARY

The Makaton Vocabulary, one of the more popular methods, consists of 350 signs taken from the British Sign Language of the Deaf (BSL). It is important to emphasise that these signs are not specially devised but are natural signs commonly used by deaf people. BSL is a combined language which uses pictorial signs, lip reading and finger spelling, where words are spelt on the fingers using the manual alphabet. The Makaton Vocabulary is a simplified form of BSL, which selects only signs that are in common use and arranges them in nine stages of conceptual difficulty for structured teaching, so that easier concepts are taught first. Many of these signs, particularly in the first few stages, have common roots in natural gesture and are widely under- stood.

Sign systems use hand movements to convey mean-

PAGET-GORMAN SIGN SYSTEM The Paget-Gorman Sign System was designed by

hearing people for use by the handicapped. It contains approximately 3,000 signs based on a system of stand- ard hand postures. Many of the signs are grouped together conceptually. For instance, the sign for “cat” is animal + whiskers, and “garage” is building + vehicle. The signer presents the signs in the same order as spoken English and follows the structure of the spoken word - there are even signs for the indefinite article “a/an” and for verb endings, such as -ing or -ed.

A recent survey of ESN(S) schools (Kiernan et al., 1979) indicated that 70 per cent of schools using a

sign system were using Makaton compared with 27 per cent using Paget-Gorman. While Paget-Gorman has the advantage of teaching more about the structure of spoken English, Makaton benefits from signs that are easier to form and are in wider use among deaf people. Whichever of the systems is used, signs are always accompanied by normal speech to give the fullest possible message.

Symbol systems Alternatively symbol systems provide a pre-deter-

mined set of symbols, either printed on a large card or in the form of moveable plastic shapes. BLISS SYMBOLICS

Bliss Symbolics, (often known simply as BLISS), is the most common symbol system in use with the mentally handicapped (Kiernan et al., 1979). Many of the symbols are “pictographs”, pictures of the things they represent; others are “ideographs,” representing ideas. The client can select several symbols and com- municate in sentences by placing them in order. As a word equivalent is written under each symbol, the message can be easily understood by a person un- familiar with BLISS - a useful advantage over the more restricted code of sign language.

Although some handicapped people are using other symbol systems, such as Rebus or Premack, these have not rivalled the popularity of BLISS for people who have difficulty making the precise hand move- ments demanded by sign language.

To conclude There are many claims that teaching a non-vocal

system leads to an increase in the use of speech in people who have previously said very little. This in itself is encouraging. But perhaps the most positive outcome of the TIME OF THE SIGNS is being able to provide the non-speaker with a means of interact- ing with the rest of the world - at last we have reached a point where not all Close Encounters need be of the WORD kind.

References Gardner, R. A., Gardner, B. T. Teaching sign language to a

chimpanzee. Science, 1969, 165 : 664-672. Kiernan, C., Reid, B., Jones, L. Signs and symbols - who uses

what? Special Education : Forward Trends, 1979, 6 : 32-34.

Sources Further information on the systems described may be obtained from the following addresses: Makaton Vocabulary Development Project

31 Firwood Drive, Camberley, Surrey. Paget-Gorman Sign System (PGSS)

Miss Elma Craig, The City Lit., Keeley House, Keeley Street, London WC2B 4BA

Blissymbolics Communication Resource Centre Mrs. Ena Davies, South Glamorgan Institute of Higher Education, Western Avenue, Llandaff, Cardiff CF5 2YB.

52 Apex, J . Brit. Inst. Ment. Hand., Vol. 9 No. 2, 1981, 52