Asl and Fingerspelling as Reading Strategies

Deaf children face extra challenges when it comes to starting school. Most students come in with language deprivation—in American Sign Language (ASL). More than ninety percent of deaf children are born to hearing parents according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. (NICID 2018) This means that families lack the language tools necessary to converse with their children on a daily basis, and to instruct them in what should be the child’s native language. No matter how much speech therapy or lipreading instruction a child receives, he will always be at a disadvantage in the conversation—tone contributes important aspects of meaning in spoken language. While deaf children can read body language and facial cues, they need to be able to verify their interpretation of the meanings, and ASL can give them that avenue. The medical community has told parents for many years that introducing ASL (sign language) to the child before he learns English or how to speak will confuse the child and slow down the language acquisition. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Much like bilingual speaking children, deaf children learn to code-switch and the use of one language enhances understanding in the other. To enable the deaf child to make the same educational advancements as his hearing peers, ASL instruction, and specifically fingerspelling in its various forms, needs to be introduced as early and in as fluid a manner as possible.

The current problem is two-fold: deaf students traditionally read at a lower grade level than their peers, and due to small groups of deaf children spread out around the country, there has not been significant study or conclusions as to what does and doesn’t work in teaching deaf children to read. The main focus of society has been one of oral production—thereby allowing the child to grow into an adult who can live in the hearing world. Most explicit instruction has been in the areas of helping the deaf child to both speak and read the lips of others in order to communicate. Deaf children spend hours in front of mirrors and with tongue depressors in order to learn proper lip and tongue placement to form words that they cannot hear from others. While it is accurate to say that the deaf child will need to adapt to his environment, the most necessary mode of communication has long been neglected—reading.

Reading in his second language, English, will be as needed on a daily basis as much as lipreading. Whenever communication breaks down, or needs to be clear, then the deaf adult resorts to writing the need or request. This written form of communication is then read for comprehension. The deaf adult is commonly at a fourth-grade reading level, which can severely limit communication. This unfortunate fact is the strongest argument to increase a child’s reading level to be on par with his hearing peers. The first thing to examine is how the deaf child is exposed to the building blocks of reading. Many families live in a literature-rich environment having books around and modeling reading in front of the deaf child. These same families, while they are readers, are not encouraging reading by the deaf child. (Stobbart 2018) The families involved in his study stated that their preference and energy went into teaching their child to speak and make friends rather than on signing or reading together. The study was made up of a sample of 29 families whose preschool children went to state run schools for deaf children. These parents are not mainstreaming their children so many were also in signing programs, yet several families discouraged signing in part because the siblings did not sign. Most families did not sit and read with the child, and relied on gesturing to communicate with the deaf child. For three to five years the child remained in an environment where he had to adapt and guess what was happening. The emphasis was on speaking and comprehension of spoken language within the family setting. This leaves the instruction of language and literacy up to the schools. Waiting all this time for instruction is the root of the deaf child’s problem.

Morere says, “A consistent finding in the research is that a strong first language (L1) foundation (regardless of the language used for L1) is critical to reading success.” (Morere, 2011) For most deaf children, spoken or written English is not the L1. Most deaf children who come to school are lacking in a strong L1. For some, ASL has been used, for others, attempting to lipread and watching the gestures of family members is the only way they have communicated with the outside world. Once all these children are brought into the same classroom, they need a unifying language. ASL is the L1 that will bridge the gap between deaf children and enable them to excel in reading.

Children born to hearing parents are at a severe disadvantage. Some families of children will learn some basic signs to communicate with their deaf members. Since learning ASL takes years to master, many families are not able or willing to put in the time or effort necessary to master the language. This is unfortunate for the deaf child because he doesn’t have the chance to master his L1 before attending school as his hearing counterparts will. Also, and more importantly for his mental and social growth, he has been deprived of 5 years of constant language. Children are always acquiring language, even before they are able to produce it for themselves. Hearing parents are continually talking to their hearing babies–in a constant babble of names, activities and thoughts throughout a day. Even speech not directed at the child is still being processed and absorbed to learn the sounds and combinations which are common and needed for English. The deaf child in the hearing family misses these important clues and keys to acquiring his L1. The deaf child has no chance at learning English as his primary language due to his deafness, and due to the lack of ability on his parents’ part, he cannot have ASL as his L1 either. To put the deaf child on the same linguistic level as a hearing child, he would need to experience all the same situations mentioned above, in ASL or fingerspelling. The lack of constant babble of signs and spelling is what the deaf child needs to become a proficient signer.

Deaf children born to deaf parents have better ASL and fingerspelling models and opportunities—therefore they become better readers. The fluency level of the native speaker is what is needed to develop the fluency in the child. Deaf children from hearing parents will be missing the linguistical context of signs and fingerspelling. Early comprehension of fingerspelling is that of a specialized sign. The child sees all the letters together, and recognizes them not as individual letters, but as a whole. Later when the child can begin to spell, the letters take shape and start to have meanings on their own. Loan words and lexicalized signs are seen in this way. As this is a more specialized form of ASL, the deaf child of hearing parents may only pick up the neutral fingerspelling, and not the lexicalized forms used by native Deaf. Neutral fingerspelling is the spelling of names, places, or words which are not stylized or lexicalized into a “sign form”.

If the natural L1 of the deaf child is ASL, then the problem becomes clear. How to give the deaf child, during the language formative years, enough input to encourage growth? As the majority of deaf children come from hearing parents, the problem of learning ASL and proper fingerspelling becomes the greatest obstacle to overcome. The disparate way in which deafness presents itself makes dedicated programs and studies hard to implement. Mainstreaming is also a hurdle to overcome since many school districts don’t have the personnel or the knowledge to effectively help prepare and remediate the deaf reader. How deaf students learn to read is slowly coming to be understood. Some deaf children are good readers, while others have a hard time grasping the skill. Research has come to the conclusion that learning to read for a deaf child involves a mixture of ASL, fingerspelling, and English vocabulary, with the ability to recognize words being fingerspelled as having the greatest correlation to the child’s ability to read by 3rd grade. For a Deaf parent, fingerspelling is not a problem. They know all the rules of which words are fingerspelled, and their child will learn the rules as easily as a hearing child learns basic grammar. The deaf child of hearing parents is in need of a tutor who will teach him to fingerspell and work on his receptive skills. Since this skill is the most crucial to understanding how words are broken down and new ones constructed, the hearing parent cannot afford to not seek out native signing situations for the child to build the foundation for reading.

Ways hearing parents can help deaf children succeed

The simple solution to the problem of teaching deaf children to read is to teach them to sign. While some hearing parents find this to be a daunting task, it is only because they are don’t realize the challenges their child will be facing with communication. The hearing parent of a deaf child needs to realize that their child will never be able to hear normally, or communicate in the same manner as his siblings do. Using ASL is not any better, or worse than speaking, it is just different. The same is true if the family adopted a child from another country that could never learn English. The family would adapt and work to include all members equally. Multiple studies and anecdotes show that this is not the norm currently in most families. This can no longer be allowed to remain the status quo. There are different avenues that the family can take to help the deaf child: telepractice (distance instruction), and direct ASL classes for both the parent and child. With some simple instruction and guidance, families can support the deaf child through ASL.

Telepractice

In communities where there are not resources readily available, Telepractice needs to become available. In rural towns which do not have a doctor, one is linked in remotely to treat patients who cannot come into the office. This same concept when done for interventions is called Telepractice and multiple communities are trying to see if this would be a valuable resource for families of deaf children. With the advances in technology and familiarity with telecommuting, this can become a valuable avenue for hearing families. ASL classes for families are difficult to find, and even harder to find time away from home to attend. Telepractice can also fulfill this need. Families need resources and they need to be encouraged to communicate with their child in a way that works best for the child. The classes can also be used with the deaf child to help provide a native-level speaker as an example. Videos of native-level signers can also be created, thereby allowing the child to continue to receive comprehensible input outside of the home.

Direct ASL classes

If available, direct instruction for the child and parent is essential. Siblings should also be included in this process so that the social bonds that exist between siblings can be allowed to develop. As the sibling is the first interaction with another child of the same age bracket, meaningful interaction between siblings would best be fostered without a language barrier. If all members start from the same place, then they can progress together, learning gradually more difficult concepts as the child grows. With an increased vocabulary, the parent(s) can use the same type of storytelling techniques and questions which they use with their hearing child. The parent is the child’s first teacher, and as such, needs to model the behaviors of reading and learning to and with the child. With the advances in technology, new words are only an internet search away and then the conversation can continue. If the sign is not available, fingerspelling is an excellent technique of circumlocution. Fluency in ASL before the child gets to school is an indicator of the future fluency in reading. (Stone 2015) If parents understand the relationship between signed language and literacy development instead of thinking that spoken language is the precursor to literacy development. (Stobbart 2008)

Conclusion

A deaf child should be treated as any other child growing up in a bilingual household—give him as much exposure to language as possible and provide the tools for the linking of the language and written word, or the picture of the item as appropriate. Thinking of the deaf child, not as lacking in hearing, but as sharing in two distinct cultures and experiences opens a world of positivism and hope to the deaf child. The first steps in the change of mindset is to give the child an L1 that he can use and is sustainable for his lifetime—ASL. Proper instruction in ASL should be a requirement for any deaf child and his family. While hard to enforce, the first step is getting trained personnel into the public sphere so that the parents and families have somewhere to go. Using hospital testing and communication methods to help families not try to repair the deafness, but to work within best practices for the health and well-being of the deaf child. Even if the child might be implanted with a cochlear device, or use hearing aids at a later time, the importance of language acquisition starts at birth. Day one until around year five is the most crucial time for language development. The stimulation that a baby needs in order to become a well-adjusted and fully functioning member of society requires the parents to present the child with a myriad of learning experiences and environments. The most important of these is a working language.

ASL is different from other methods which try to repair the deaf child’s hearing. It doesn’t require surgery, have complications, damage what hearing still exists, nor needs to be recharged. Providing the child with ASL is giving him tools to access his world. ASL is not a difficult language to learn. ASL has also become somewhat of a popular language to teach babies, with many hearing parents teaching it to their hearing babies in order to communicate earlier. If this tendency holds, then the deaf child should have many playmates who have at least around 100 signs of knowledge. Communication in the early years is simple (birth to one year) After that, the hearing parent needs to seek out native signers or classes where the parent can learn with the child and develop the constant talking that babies require to gain proficiency in the language. Focusing on giving the child good models and as much language and vocabulary as possible will help to develop the fluency that will be needed for reading and writing at school. Parents need to take responsibility not for repairing any hearing loss that may have occurred, but for giving the child the tools necessary to affront and succeed in the world. When the deaf child is viewed as capable, then he progresses faster.