Anna Miller
April 22, 2003
“Fingerspelling Phobia”
The field of psychology defines “phobia” as a fear of a
particular situation or phenomenon. Research has proven that a frequent
occurrence of “fingerspelling phobia” exists among deaf education teachers
and parents of those children who are deaf (Grushkin, 1998). In the
following paragraphs, we will explore several questions related to this fear
of fingerspelling. These questions include: (1) What is so scary about
fingerspelling anyway? (2) So, why do we even have to use fingerspelling?
(3) If we have to use fingerspelling, how in the world do we use it?
“Fingerspelling” is a form of using your fingers to represent
letters of the alphabet. It does not sound very scary. So, what is so
scary about fingerspelling anyway? One possibility lies within the lack of
skill among teachers and parents. They feel uncomfortable and feel they are
not fluent enough to apply it in their teaching. Furthermore, lack of
practice exists continuing the declination of their fingerspelling
ability. During five separate teacher observations done by Akamatsu and
Stewart, the lack of fluency was denoted as they recorded several common
fingerspelling mistakes. First of all, the error of “elision” was denoted
as the teachers neglected to include all of the letters in the word such as,
F-V-E for “five” and T-P-E for “tape.” An additional error observed was the
unconscious use of substitution. For example, the word "code" was
fingerspelled as C-S-D-E. Also exemplified during the observation was the
incorrect doubling of letters adjacent to each other and the deletion of
letters that are suppose to be doubled. For instance, one teacher used
incorrect doubling when fingerspelling V-A-L-E-E-Y for “valley.” Another
teacher failed to double the letter “l” in the work “collie (Akamatsu &
Stewart, 1989).” Another possibility for the reluctance of using
fingerspelling is the incorrect perception that fingerspelling is too
difficult for deaf children to acquire or understand, especially the younger
children who may be behind in the area of communication. These teachers
and parents, who hold this perception, believe that it would be more
beneficial to utilize signs only on the grounds that their English skills
are far too poor to incorporate fingerspelling as a mode of learning.
Why do we even have to use fingerspelling? Fingerspelling
serves as a visual linguistic link between sign language and the acquisition
of English. In other words, fingerspelling is the bridge that aids in the
connection of the child’s natural language to English. Furthermore, the
letters manually signed through fingerspelling represent the English lexicon
and graphemes, which is a wonderful example of “language contact (Lucus &
Valli, 1992) between American Sign Language and English. Therefore, one can
see the importance of utilizing fingerspelling frequently in order to
achieve the educational goal of successful English acquisition.
If we have to use fingerspelling, how in the world do we use
it? First of all, teachers and parents can use fingerspelling for the
development of new vocabulary. This is accomplished by utilizing the
techniques shared by Padden, which include: framing, distancing, and
linking equivalences (Padden, 1996b). For example, a teacher or parent may
want to introduce the word, “ball.” Step one, fingerspell “ball”, B-A-L-L;
step two, discuss what a ball looks like and what it does (linking); and
step three, write the word on the board (English) and fingerspell B-A-L-L
while pointing to the word (framing equivalences). These techniques
developed by Padden can be incorporated into the learning of any new
vocabulary. An additional way Padden suggests teachers and parents utilize
fingerspelling is by representing words as a unit as they are fingerspelled
and not as individual letters (Padden, 1996a). His research proves that
reception of the entire word in best achieved by fingerspelling words as a
whole and that understanding is lost when fingerspelling is performed at an
unnaturally slow rate.
It is imperative that teachers and parents of those children who are deaf
become fluent in both receptive and expressive fingerspelling. We must put
aside any related phobia in order to help build that bridge between American
Sign Language and English Acquisition.
References
Akamatsu, C.T., & Stewart, D.A. (1989). The role of
fingerspelling in simultaneous communication. Sign Language Studies,
65, 361-373.
Gushkin, Donald. (1998). Lexidactylophobia: The
(irrational) fear of fingerspelling. American Annals of the Deaf,
143, 1-12.
Paden, C.A. (1996a). Early bilingual lives of deaf
children. Cultural and language diversity and the Deaf experience
(pp.99-116). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Paden, C.A. (1996b). From the cultural to the
bicultural: The modem Deaf community. Cultural and language diversity
and the Deaf experience (pp.79-98). New York: Cambridge University
Press.
DISCUSSION:
In a message dated 8/31/2002 7:23:39 AM Central Daylight Time,
"Ed" writes:
<<One final question for now if you don't mind........How do I "erase/backspace" (like that explanation?) when I fingerspell and make an error? i.e.) sign "e" when I meant
"t"?>>
Hello Ed,
There are several approaches to managing errors while fingerspelling.
Approach # 1. Totally ignore the error. The other person "knows what you mean." Compare the situation to someone pronouncing a word a little bit wrong. Do you correct that person? Maybe if he or she is your child, yes, but in adult-level conversation you just let it slide and instead focus on the content of the message.
Approach # 2. Simply respell the word.
Approach # 3. When you spell the "incorrect letter" immediately use a very small side to side waving motion of a relaxed "5-hand" then use the correct letter and go on.
Approach #4. When you spell the "incorrect letter" respell the word but emphasize the correct letter by using a very small forward thrust of the hand and holding the correct letter just a tiny fraction of a second longer than the other letters in the word.
Approach #5. Only spell a portion of the word -- then wiggle your fingers and move your hand to the right a couple inches. (Assuming you are right handed.) This is a common technique in the Deaf Community for spelling words that you don't know how to spell.
So, there you have it. A whole bunch of "correct" ways to correct yourself. I wouldn't get hung up on it though. After a while it becomes no big deal and you just focus on the message, not the spelling.
Good luck with your studies.
Bill