B Simplifed Signs onvillian Volume 1: Principles, A Manual Sign-Communication System for Special Populations Background, and Application , K Volume 1: Principles, Background, and Application issane John D. Bonvillian, nicole Kissane lee, Tracy T. Dooley, anD Filip T. loncKe l Simplifed Signs presents a system of manual sign communicaton intended for ee Simplifed Signs special populatons who have had limited success mastering spoken or full sign , D languages. It is the culminaton of over twenty years of research and development ooley by the authors. The Simplifed Sign System has been developed and tested for ease of sign comprehension, memorizaton, and formaton by limitng the complexity , of the motor skills required to form each sign, and by ensuring that each sign an visually resembles the meaning it conveys. D l Volume 1 outlines the research underpinning and informing the project, and onc places the Simplifed Sign System in a wider context of sign usage, historically K and by diferent populatons. Volume 2 presents the lexicon of signs, totalling e A Manual Sign-Communication approximately 1000 signs, each with a clear illustraton and a writen descripton of how the sign is formed, as well as a memory aid that connects the sign visually System for Special Populations to the meaning that it conveys. While the Simplifed Sign System originally was developed to meet the needs of s impli persons with intellectual disabilites, cerebral palsy, autsm, or aphasia, it may also assist the communicaton needs of a wider audience – such as healthcare F professionals, aid workers, military personnel , travellers or parents, and children ie D who have not yet mastered spoken language. The system also has been shown to s enhance learning for individuals studying a foreign language. igns Lucid and comprehensive, this work consttutes a valuable resource that will enhance the communicatve interactons of many diferent people, and will be of great interest to researchers and educators alike. As with all Open Book publicatons, this entre book is available to read for free on v the publisher’s website. Printed and digital editons, together with supplementary olume digital material, can also be found at www.openbookpublishers.com 1 Cover Image and design by Anna Gat. Illustraton by Valerie Nelson-Metlay book eebook and OA editons also available John D. Bonvillian, nicole Kissane lee, OPEN ACCESS oBp Tracy T. Dooley, anD Filip T. loncKe To access digital resources including: blog posts videos online appendices and to purchase copies of this book in: hardback paperback ebook editions Go to: htps://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/1165 Open Book Publishers is a non-proft independent initiative. We rely on sales and donations to continue publishing high-quality academic works. SIMPLIFIED SIGNS: VOL. 1 Simplified Signs: A Manual Sign-Communication System for Special Populations Volume 1: Principles, Background, and Application John D. Bonvillian, Nicole Kissane Lee, Tracy T. Dooley, and Filip T. Loncke Illustrated by Val Nelson-Metlay https://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2020 John D. Bonvillian, Nicole Kissane Lee, Tracy T. Dooley and Filip T. Loncke. Illustrations by Val Nelson-Metlay. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: John D. Bonvillian, Nicole Kissane Lee, Tracy T. Dooley and Filip T. Loncke, Simplifed Signs: A Manual Sign-Communication System for Special Populations, Volume 1. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2020, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0205 In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit https:// doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0205#copyright Further details about CC BY licenses are available at https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web Updated digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0205#resources Every efort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notifcation is made to the publisher. ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78374-923-2 ISBN Hardback: 978-1-78374-924-9 ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-78374-925-6 ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 978-1-78374-926-3 ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 978-1-78374-927-0 ISBN XML: 978-1-78374-928-7 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0205 Cover Image and design by Anna Gatti. Contents Preface and Acknowledgments xi Postscript xxiii 1. Introduction 1 Addressing Concerns about Sign-Communication Training 4 and Teaching Special Populations 8 The Simplifed Sign System 12 Goals, Clarifcations, and Recommendations 21 Other Potential Users of the Simplifed Sign System 23 Contents and Structure of the Two Volumes 28 2. Use of Manual Signs and Gestures by Hearing Persons: 31 Historical Perspectives The Origins of Language 33 Signs as a Natural and Universal Form of Communication 37 Gestural and Sign Use Cross-Culturally 40 Sign Communication in North America 42 Europeans in the New World and their Communicative 47 Interactions through Signs Early European Gestural Communication 51 Concluding Remarks 54 3. Deaf Persons and Sign Languages 55 Deaf Education and the Recognition of Sign Languages 56 Sign Production 63 Diferent Sign Languages and Obstacles to Sign 68 Communication Worldwide Unique Aspects of Sign Languages 72 Iconic Signs 76 Sign Language Acquisition 82 Concluding Remarks 90 vi Simplified Signs — Vol. 1 4. Sign Communication in Persons with an Intellectual 93 Disability or with Cerebral Palsy An Early Study 95 Intellectual Disability 97 Cerebral Palsy 119 Recommendations for Enhancing the Sign-Learning 127 Environment Selecting Signs 137 5. Childhood Autism and Sign Communication 141 Childhood Autism 142 Sign-Communication Training and Teaching 152 Dispelling Myths 158 Teaching Generalization and Spontaneous Communication 162 Skills Motor and Imitation Abilities 164 Other Non-Oral Approaches 172 Evaluative Comments 183 6. Sign-Communication Intervention in Adults and Children 187 with Aphasia Introduction to Aphasia and Apraxia 188 Sign-Communication Training Outcomes 197 Sign Facilitation of Spoken Language 210 Acquired Childhood Aphasia and Landau-Klefner 214 Syndrome Developmental Language Disorder and Childhood Apraxia 220 of Speech Concluding Remarks 233 7. Use of Manual Signs and Gestures by Hearing Persons: 235 Contemporary Perspectives Teaching Signs to Hearing Infants of Hearing Parents 237 Socioeconomic Intervention Programs and Language 243 Attention-Defcit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in 250 Academic Settings Using Manual Signs to Improve Reading Comprehension 255 Facilitating Foreign Language Vocabulary Acquisition 258 Learning to Sign May Positively Afect One’s Cognitive 268 Abilities Concluding Remarks 277 Contents vii 8. Development of the Simplifed Sign System 281 Background Information 281 Step One: Iconic Sign Selection 288 Step Two: Sign Formation Modifcation 290 Step Three: Testing of Simplifed Signs with Undergraduate 293 Students Step Four: Comparison Testing of Simplifed Signs 298 Step Five: Feedback from Users 303 Step Six: Memory Aids 305 Concluding Remarks 308 9. Application and Use of the Simplifed Sign System with 311 Persons with Disabilities Approaches to Teaching the Simplifed Sign System 312 Guidelines for Using the Simplifed Sign System 318 Frequently Asked Questions 330 Concluding Remarks 345 Appendix A: Sign Language Dictionaries and Other Sources 347 Appendix B: Handshapes 351 Appendix C: Palm, Finger, and Knuckle Orientation 357 Palm Orientation 357 Finger/Knuckle Orientation 360 Glossary 369 References 435 Author Biographies 555 Name Index 559 Subject Index 594 This book is gratefully dedicated to our parents and to the members of our families. Preface and Acknowledgments The inspiration for the development of the Simplifed Sign System occurred some years ago, in the late 1980s. A former student and I had recently completed a research project that examined various factors associated with non-speaking children’s success in learning signs to communicate (Bonvillian & Blackburn, 1991). Most of the participants in that study were students diagnosed with autism at the Grafton School in Virginia. Because these students had failed to make signifcant progress in learning to speak, they had been taught to communicate through American Sign Language (ASL) signs. ASL is the principal language of the Deaf community in the United States. After the research project ended, I met with Gail Mayfeld, the director of the autism program at Grafton, to discuss the results. One of the fndings was that scores on tests of the students’ motor abilities predicted their acquisition of ASL signs. Many of the students had also obtained quite low scores on these tests of motor abilities. Furthermore, those children with more impaired motor skills tended to acquire relatively few signs and rarely combined them into more complex utterances. These results surprised me because previous investigators had consistently stated that motor skills in children with autism were largely unimpaired. These fndings, however, did not surprise Gail. As the director of a program that had used signs with children with autism for over a decade, Gail had seen frsthand the difculties that many of her students experienced with motor tasks and sign formation. Gail made a point of underlining what she perceived as a serious problem in her students’ communication training: many of them clearly had problems accurately forming the signs that they were being taught. In her opinion, the combination of the students’ motor difculties and the formational complexity of many ASL signs made her students’ sign learning only a limited success. © J. D. Bonvillian & W. B. Bonvillian, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0205.10 xii Simplified Signs — Vol.