Keys to English Print:

As published in Odyssey, Fall 2003
A Deaf Child Teaches a Community About Fingerspelling in PDF (10 pages, 317 kb)

A Deaf Child Teaches a Community About Fingerspelling

Interview by Mary Ellen Carew

ODYSSEY: In 1995, you published a study on fingerspelling that caused a lot of discussion. How did you get involved in this?
AK: I was a researcher in the Gallaudet Research Institute. For about ten years, we had collected data on deaf children of deaf parents by videotaping them in their homes, capturing such typical, unplanned activities as reading stories, play, mealtimes, bedtime routines, even a parent’s birthday. Because of my fascination with fingerspelling, I decided to look at receptive and expressive fingerspelling skills in one deaf child over the course of four years. I
was curious how these skills developed.

ODYSSEY: Who was the child?
AK: Debbie*, a deaf daughter of deaf parents living in the eastern part of the United States. Her parents are white and college-educated. Debbie’s maternal and paternal grandparents are deaf. A set of great-grandparents was deaf, too, making this child fourth-generation deaf. Debbie has a younger deaf sister, Ann. Now a teenager, Debbie still lives in the East with her parents and Ann. An excellent athlete, she also enjoys reading.

ODYSSEY: How did you record the development of Debbie’s fingerspelling skills?
AK: Over a period of four years, we recorded 42 tapes of Debbie at home with her family and friends. An average videotaped session ran 40-45 minutes, totaling 31 hours of interaction.

ODYSSEY: How did you analyze that?

AK: I did it in three steps. First, I transcribed all the fingerspelled items that Debbie, her parents, and other adult relatives produced. Second, I eliminated those items that Debbie might not have seen. The focus of my analysis was on items that the parents and other people purposely fingerspelled to Debbie. I also included situations in which Debbie observed adult conversations that included fingerspelling. Third, I focused on the linguistic context of each item, i.e., Was fingerspelling produced in isolation or as part of a phrase or sentence? I also sorted each item according to the part of speech it represented: noun, verb, adverb, adjective, and preposition. In American Sign Language, fingerspelled items such as O-K also frequently appear as tag questions—questions occurring at the end of a sentence. An example in English is, “John is not running, is he?” We also identified “sandwich” phrases. A sandwiched phrase is when a word or its equivalent occurs inside a phrase in both fingerspelled and signed forms.

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ODYSSEY: How old was Debbie when you began to study her fingerspelling?
AK: Debbie was five weeks old when we made our first videotape, but on this tape the parents did not fingerspell to Debbie. The first fingerspelling we caught was when Debbie was eight weeks, and Debbie’s mother included fingerspelled words in two sentences and a question: “Look a-t me.” “You should smile for t-h-e camera.” “Show smile, O-K?” At 14 weeks, the mother asked Debbie, “Laugh a-t me?” At 17 weeks, Debbie’s mother said, “Look a-t yourself in t-h-e mirror.” “What want d-o now?” When Debbie was 7 to 12 months, 18 of the parental comments we recorded included fingerspelling. There was an increase of d-o and O-K in isolation, in sentences, or as a tag question like “O-K?”

ODYSSEY: What were some early milestones in the growth of Debbie’s fingerspelling skills?
AK: When Debbie was 19 months, both parents were on the floor with Debbie, playing with alphabet blocks. Together they identified the first letter of each family member’s name—M for Mommy, D for Daddy, N for Nana— by pointing out the block and producing the corresponding handshape simultaneously. By 22 months, Debbie could identify the letters herself, pointing out which letter represented which family member, including her infant sister.

When Debbie was 24 months old, her father asked if she wanted “potato c-h-i-p-s,” and Debbie copied him by signing to herself: “potato c-h-p c-h-p c-h-p potato.”

Interestingly, during Debbie’s 30th month she invented a name for her new doll: “S-i-l-a.” While this was a pretend name, it was phonologically correct in English. Debbie also discussed her uncle’s job at “I-B-M” with her deaf aunt.

When Debbie was 41 months, her mother devised a game in which she wrote names of immediate family members and nouns in capital letters on index cards. The mother flashed the cards to Debbie, encouraging her to copy the letters and then to produce a corresponding sign. In some cases, Debbie struggled to understand a whole word, but when her mother repeated with a lexicalized sign—that is, a sign in which the letters are borrowed from fingerspelling and condensed in movement and shape—Debbie caught on to the meaning. For example, when Debbie did not understand r-i-c-e, her mother showed her lexicalized “#rice.” Debbie understood and responded back with the same lexicalized sign.

At 47.5 months, Debbie, playing by herself, recited the whole manual alphabet slowly. At 50 months, Debbie fingerspelled the whole manual alphabet smoothly with one error: she fingerspelled...N-O-Q. Suddenly she caught herself and backtracked...N-O-P-Q.

ODYSSEY: In what context did Debbie’s parents use fingerspelling?
AK: Most of Debbie’s parents’ utterances with fingerspelled items were in sentences. One fingerspelled item that appeared in tag questions and in isolation was OK. As I mentioned, we videotaped the first three sentences with fingerspelling made by Debbie’s parents when Debbie was eight weeks: a preposition, a-t; a noun phrase, t-h-e camera; and a tag question, “O-K?”

ODYSSEY: Did you look at how she fingerspelled?
AK: The earliest we videotaped Debbie fingerspelling a noun was at 24 months: “potato c-h-p c-h-p c-h-p potato.” Debbie’s earliest fingerspelled proper name, captured on videotape at 25 months, was when she mentioned a friend. The earliest verb, “D-o?” was videotaped at 43 months. It is possible that this utterance was produced much earlier but not captured on tape until this point. Debbie’s earliest fingerspelled adjective, “l-o” and “l-o-o-l-o” (for“loose”) was taped at 49.5 months.

ODYSSEY: You mentioned sandwiching earlier. How did Debbie use this fingerspelling structure?
AK: Debbie herself used sandwiches at 37 months by asking her sister: “O-K? O-K?” At 38 months, Debbie answered an off-camera question, “No, N-o.” At 40 months, we found Debbie informing her sister that they had a visitor in the house by signing the visitor’s name sign, then fingerspelling his name, J-i-m, then finishing with his name sign. Debbie’s most frequent question around this time was “D-o today D-o?” or“D-o now D-o?” At 44 months, when talking with her mother, Debbie signed “sleep” then fingerspelled n-a-p. And at 49 months, while playing with dolls with her sister, Debbie signed “N-o zero” and “Not hit N-o, N-o, N-o!”

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ODYSSEY: What conclusions could you draw from all of this? How did you relate the progress of one child, Debbie, to published opinions on children’s fingerspelling?
AK: Debbie’s parents exposed her to fingerspelling immediately after her birth. We have such evidence on record from eight weeks of age. Debbie’s fingerspelling of individual letters, as shown in her blocks play at 19 and 22 months, exhibited clear formations. Debbie fingerspelled to herself at her second birthday party. This time frame matched that described by Padden and LeMaster, who noted that it was usually around the second birthday that children produced fingerspelled items independently.

Mayberry and Waters suggested that children were able to remember words expressed in purely fingerspelled form without the support of sign. We found this to be true of Debbie, as shown by her playing the index card game at 41 months. At this age, Debbie did not understand some words when they were fingerspelled. But when her mother repeated these words in lexicalized form without the support of other signs, Debbie showed comprehension.

PHOTO BY GOODMA N/VAN RIPER

Half and full sandwiching was useful in labeling objects—to introduce both the written and signed forms—and occurred frequently in Debbie’s’ parents’ signing. They often pointed at an object, then fingerspelled and signed, or in reverse: signing, fingerspelling, and then pointing. Often while Debbie and her parents were reading stories, sandwiching appeared that included pointing at the pictures in the books. It became apparent that deaf parents in the early education of their young deaf children use sandwiching, in addition to pointing, frequently.

ODYSSEY: Why is fingerspelling important?
AK: Many people have asked when and how often deaf parents should expose their deaf or hearing children to fingerspelling. Evidence from Padden and LeMaster and Mayberry and Waters shows that children acquiring ASL also acquire the ability to produce and understand fingerspelling at a very early age. This current study supports these ideas. Thus I encourage parents to use fingerspelling in their daily discourse with their deaf children as early as possible.

ODYSSEY: Do you know if Debbie uses fingerspelling now?
AK: When preparing this article, I thought it would be great to have an on-line interview with her. I got permission from her mother, who warned that Debbie the teenager may not say much. Sure enough, Debbie’s responses over e-mail were so succinct, I followed up with a face-to-face chat. Both her mother and Ann, her younger sister, contributed bits to the chat.

We talked about my previous study and all laughed about the index card game in which Debbie comprehended fingerspelled r-i-c-e only after she saw lexicalized #rice. Both Debbie and Ann seemed astonished about the difference between full signs and lexicalized signs.

At first, Debbie said that she rarely used fingerspelling except when frustrated or upset. Ann volunteered that Debbie often fingerspelled when calling out basketball plays, which is a common occurrence in such activities. Debbie and Ann also said that their parents used fingerspelling only to introduce a new word or to clarify a concept. In discussing fingerspelling among her friends, Debbie professed that they did not use fingerspelling except when a word did not have a sign. She also added that she did not think any of her friends knew fingerspelling, anyway.

After a few minutes of talking, however, Debbie and Ann backtracked, realizing that their parents incorporated a lot of loan signs in daily conversations. Later in the chat, Debbie also realized that her friends actually used lexicalized signs and wondered if they themselves were even aware of that. It was like a moment of enlightenment, and I hope Debbie raises this question with her friends.

Similarly, Debbie initially denied the connection between fingerspelling and her reading ability. She said she read only because her parents gave her books early on, with which I had to agree, as they are evident in many of the videotaped reading sessions. But I pointed out how her father introduced a cupboard in a book: “open c-u-p-b-o-a-r-d shelf.” With a shy smile, Debbie finally saw the connection.

I was especially curious about the fact that Debbie uses fingerspelling with her grandparents more than with other family members. She explained that they were orally trained, and that she is a rapid signer. In addition, Debbie’s mother offered that the grandparents are often unaware of “modern signs,” mostly because of their oral upbringing. Fingerspelling clearly plays a role in bridging two modalities—oralism and manualism—in addition to being helpful when learning to read.

From conversations with her parents and my own observations, I know that Debbie is very intelligent and clearly ahead of most of her peers. Because of this, I believe that acquiring receptive and expressive fingerspelling at an early stage in life has contributed to her academic achievement. I strongly encourage parents and relatives of newly diagnosed deaf infants, educators of young deaf children, and friends of the deaf to incorporate fingerspelling into their daily conversations. No one is ever too young to learn and use it.