Jack.O'keeffe@f26.n129.z1.fidonet.org (Jack O'keeffe) (04/04/91)
Index Number: 14622
[This is from the Silent Talk Conference]
My overeducated daughter just sent me an interesting article she
clipped from the Baltimore "SUN" that makes a convincing case for
signing as a natural language. It comes via the NY TIMES news
service and reports research findings by Dr. Laura Ann Petitto
at McGill. A few excerpts:
"Deaf babies of deaf parents babble with their hands in the same
rythmic, repetitive fashion that hearing babies babble vocally.
"The deaf babies, who presumably watch their parents use sign
language at home, start their manual babbles before they are 10
months old, the same age that hearing babies begin stringing
together sounds into word-like units.
"And just like hearing babies experiment with a few key noises
like 'dadadada' or 'babababa', so deaf infants use several
motions over and over, including one gesture that looks like 'OK'
"The new research strongly suggests that the brain has an innate
capacity to learn language in a particular, stepwise fashion, by
stringing together units that eventually become words
"The brain will progress from one stage to another regardless of
whether language is conveyed by speaking, hand-signing, or
presumably any other method of communication.
"The results contradict a widespread assumption among linguists
that the maturation of the vocal chords affects language
development among infants.
"For centuries, people thought that speech is language, and
language is speech . . . We've decoupled language form speech.
We've torn them apart."
The report by Dr. Petitto et al was published in "SCIENCE".
Anyone caring to read more can find it there.
And if any SilentTalkers are still in "FLAME ON" mode, please
direct the flames to Dr. Petitto. I deplore the recent trend
of a thoughtless minority to mount personal attacks on those
individuals who have done nothing more that post information
of considerable interest here in this echo. Thankfully, most
of us know better. But the few who do not can have a stifling
effect - especially on new SilentTalkers.
... HI-HoH Silver, Awayyyyy!
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