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Transcript:

Hi–my name is Dr. Deanna Gagne. I lead a research team called the MAC lab. MAC lab stands for: M: Modality, or the different ways to express language; for instance, verbal speech, sign, written text, touch, etc. A: Acquisition, or how we learn language. C: Cognition, the way we think and interact with the world.

We have several ongoing projects but I’ll discuss two here. One is an National Science Foundation (NSF) -supported project which is a collaboration with two other universities (University of Maryland and Howard University). With Gallaudet, the three of us collaborated with Project Word Museum here in Washington, DC. Each university has its own project but Gallaudet’s focuses on hearing people’s perceptions of sign language. This includes: the ability of hearing visitors to guess signs, attitudes about language; for instance, is it hard or easy to learn sign language compared to other languages? And what was their ability to guess the meanings of different signs?

Our goal is to educate the hearing population who really don’t know about signed languages or those who have a little knowledge, but hold misconceptions about signed language.

A second, larger project is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in which we focus on the acquisition of new language that has emerged within the DeafBlind community. DeafBlind adults have developed and expanded the use of protactlie, or PT. Deafblind adults have learned and grown the use of PT but PT has not really been taught to infants or young children. Our goal is to put DeafBlind adults directly in touch with DeafBlind children and infants so the adults can expose the children to PT. We are studying their acquisition of PT: the acquisition of a new language and their ability to take on a 3rd modality.

Our goal is to expand our understanding of touch as a modality and to study how we can directly make a positive impact on DeafBlind infants and young children in their development and educational experiences via Protactile. Thank you.