Poster #36 - Copresence and protactile language: Case studies of DeafBlind children learning from a DeafBlind adult

• In Event: Poster Session 12

Abstract

Protactile (PT) is a fully tactile language emerging among US-based DeafBlind (DB) adults since about 2007 (Edwards & Brentari, 2021). Most protactile-using DB adults were born deaf-sighted, identifying as DeafBlind later (ibid). Protactile is their second (or third) language after American Sign Language (ASL) and/or English. Protactile diverged from ASL by eliminating perceptually difficult elements (e.g., complex handshapes), and introducing proprioceptively informative elements unavailable in ASL (pressure, vibration) (Clark & Nuccio, 2020). In PT, a single modality (touch) serves several functions, including: linguistic information, attention-getting, co-presence, and backchanneling (granda & Nuccio, 2018). PT can incorporate simultaneous touches with differing meanings. For example, leg-to-leg contact signals co-presence while each person uses both of their arms/hands, each serving different roles (Edwards & Brentari, 2020).
Until now, only adults have learned protactile. There are more than 10,000 DeafBlind youth in the US (National Center on Deaf-Blindness, 2022) who could benefit from a fully tactile and accessible language. Language acquisition is a persistent concern for DeafBlind children given their limited access to both auditory-spoken and visual-signed languages. DeafBlind children also experience limited interaction with each other and DeafBlind adults due to the low incidence of deafblindness and varied schooling environments (Prickett & Welch, 1995). These factors adversely impact language acquisition and subsequent sociolinguistic and cognitive abilities. Protactile could possibly fill this gap.
We present two case studies of DeafBlind toddlers (Ben 2;10, Tom 2;6) interacting with a protactile-using DeafBlind adult. We ask: Can the children acquire (understand and produce) touch-primary signals? How does the adult introduce and label objects? We used ELAN (2022) to analyze three sampled 4-6 minute clips per child from adult-child sessions recorded across 3-4 week spans. In between, each child was visited approximately twice a week. Every touch between the adult and toddlers was coded, yielding 328 individual touch instances for Ben across 12:55 minutes, and 118 instances for Tom in 17:20.
We report several findings: (1) In protactile, a rapid tap signals an affirmative (YES) or a call for attention. The children increasingly used this rapid tap across their three sampled clips (Fig. 1). (2) The children accepted and subsequently initiated long periods of touch, possibly signaling copresence; an important achievement given documented aversion to others’ touch in congenitally DeafBlind children (Costain, 2020). Each child was recorded initiating at least a minute of sustained contact, for example, by placing a foot on the adult’s leg. (3) A pattern emerged from the DeafBlind adult’s object labeling in protactile. She either felt the child touching an object or guided his hand to it, then provided a protactile label for it (Fig. 2).
Our data suggests that the children learned and produced meaningful protactile signals; this possibly increased over time. We also see early patterns of child-directed object labeling by protactile-using DeafBlind adults. We soon hope to report data from additional time points to refine learning trajectories and to include additional adult-child dyads. We acknowledge that this work needs to expand beyond case studies for more generalizable results.

Authors

• Deanna L Gagne, Gallaudet University
  Presenting Author

• Hayley Broadway, TouchSeeds

• Jessica Ennis, Gallaudet University

• Marjorie Bates, Gallaudet University