SASL Newsletter - Fall 2018 Issue Issue 11 - Fall 2018 | Page 8

Continued from page 1: American Sign Language and Cerebral Palsy
told: “It’s ASL linguistics!” I learned that the signers who understand me best are those who have
observed and recall that my left hand cannot produce a palm-up orientation and the use of my signing
space in role-shifting and referential space is somewhat restricted because I fear that I will lose my
sitting balance and fall over. Someone once told me that my hands always move in the same way, but
I’m still signing ASL and all the signs that I use, though they sometimes look different, are always
produced consistently given my movement constraints. I am still signing ASL and working hard not to
break the linguistic rules of the language, which allows people who take the time to understand my
signing style to do so successfully!
Lauren Signing SEVEN and WHO
The phonological differences in my use of ASL as a signer with CP are the most obvious. Signs
that are typically produced with symmetry and have a palm-up orientation with the non-dominant hand
are not produced with the symmetry condition in my ASL because I must modify the palm-up
orientation. Sometimes I have difficulties with ASL phonotactics, which refers to the contact points of
the hands when signing, because of atypical palm orientation. If the orientation of a sign is produced
atypically, sometimes the contact point of the hands are also affected. Often, I produce signs that
require a palm-up orientation with the nondominant hand by retaining the typical handshape with my
dominant hand contacting with the back of my nondominant hand instead. Typical ASL handshapes
are preserved with my dominant hand and produced to the best of my ability with my nondominant
hand in orientations that are close approximations of typical signs. I also struggle with manual dexterity
in both of my hands. Frequently, I sign number signs with the atypical joint selection. For the numbers
six, seven, eight and for the F-handshape, I anchor my thumb against the first joint of the finger that is
necessary to produce the given handshape. While this results in an atypical formation of a given
handshape, it allows me to isolate particular fingers that are necessary to form certain signs that rely
on these handshapes. Being able to make the finger isolation clear for these handshapes, allows me
to communicate in ASL to my communication partners the signs that rely on these handshapes.
The most apparent morphological elements of ASL that are affected by my CP have to do with
location and movement. Deaf native ASL signers have told me that my signing space and my use of
referential space within that signing space is somewhat restricted. This is true because sometimes
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(Continue on the next page)
The Power of ASL
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Fall 2018 – Issue 11