THEUSEOFORTHOGRAPHICSTRUCTUREBYDEAFADULTS:SPELLEDLETTERSVickiL. HansonRECOGNITIONOFFINGER~Abstract.DeafadultsI knowledgeofEnglishwordstructurewastestedinataskrequiringletterreportforfingerspelledwords,pseudowords, and nonwords. Deafsubjects,likehearingsubjects,weresensitivetoorthographicstructureasindicatedbyaccuracyofletterreport:Lettersofwords werereportedmostaccurately,whilelettersofpseudowords werereportedmoreaccuratelythanlettersofnonwords.Analysisoftheincorrectletterreportsforcorrectlyrecognizedwordsrevealedthatdeafsubjectstendedtoproduceorthographicallyregularresponses.However,incontrasttothereportsofhearingsubjects,theresponsesofdeafsubjectsdidnottendtobephoneticallyconsistentwiththepresentedword.TheseresultsprovideclearevidencethatdeafadultsareabletoabstractprinciplesofEnglishorthography,althoughthephonetical-lyinconsistentletterreportssuggestthatthespellingprocessfordeafpersonsmaybefundamentallydifferentfromthatforhearingpersons.Thepresentresearchexaminestheuseoforthographicstructurebyprelinguallyandprofoundlydeafadults.TheorthographyofEnglishreflectsthephonologicalstructureofthespokenlanguage.Asaresult,segmentsof*AnearlierversionofthispaperwaspresentedatthemeetingoftheAmericanPsychologicalAssociation,LosAngeles,August,1981.Acknowledgment. Iamgratefultomanypeoplefortheirhelponthisproject.First,I wouldliketothankCarolPaddenformakingthestimulustape.Iwouldalsoliketothankthepeoplewhomadearrangementsforfacilitiesandsubjectsforthereportedexperimentandforpilotwork: NancyFishbein,NancyFrishberg,PegHlibok,GaryScharff.Dennis Schemenauer, and MarieTaccogna.Thecooperationofthefollowingorganizationsandinstitutionsisgratefullyacknowledged:NationalCenteronDeafnessatCaliforniaStateUniversity,Northridge;NewYorkUniversity;NewYorkSocietyfortheDeaf;ConnecticutCommissionfortheDeaf and HearingImpaired;andtheLinguisticsResearchLaboratoryatGallaudetCollege.JohnRichardsgraciouslyhelpedwithportionsofthedataanalysis.ThehandshapesinFigure1 were drawn byJohnConti.Portionsofthisresearchwere conductedwhiletheauthorwas apostdoctoralfellowatTheSalkInstituteforBiologicalStudies.TheworkwassupportedbytheNationalInstituteofEducationGrant#NIE-G-80-0178 andbyNINCDSResearchServiceAwardUNS06109andNICHDGrantHD-01994.[HASKINSLABORATORIES:StatusReportonSpeechResearchSR-69(1982)]27thewrittenlanguagemapontosegmentsofthespokenlanguage.Thequestionhereiswhetherdeafadults.intheabsenceofnormalspeechinput.areabletoabstracttheregularitiesofEnglishorthographicstructure.Abilitytousetheregularitiesoftheorthographyisanimportantcomponentbothinwordrecognitionandinspelling.Researchonwordrecognitionwithnormally~hearingadultshasfoundthatthereisanadvantageinletterrecognitionfororthographicallyregularnonsensewords(pseudo-words)overorthographicallyirregularnonwords (Aderman &Smith.1971;Baron&Thurston.1973;Carr.Davidson.& Hawkins. 1978) and anadvantageinletterrecallfortheseregularoverirregularnonsensewords(Gibson.Pick.Osser,&Hammond.1962).Inspelling.theabilitytoaccessandexploittheorthographicregulari-tiesofEnglishisafactordeterminingspellingsuccess.Whileaccuratespellingofwordscanresultfromrotememorizationorfromvisualrecognitionofthecorrectspellingfrom acollectionofpossiblespellings(Simon &Simon. 1973;Tenney.1980).thesestrategiesignorethesystematicaspectsofEnglishorthography(Chomsky. 1970;Klima.1972; Venezky.1970).RecentworkbyFischer(1980)hasshownthatgoodspellershavegreaterabilitytoexploittheseregularitiesoftheorthographythandopoorspellers.Todate.littleworkhasbeenconcernedwiththequestionofuseoforthographicstructurebydeafindividuals.OnestudythathasbeendirectedatthisissueisthatofGibson.Shurcliff.and Yonas(1970).Testingforrecalloftachistiscopicallypresentedpseudowordsandnonwords.theyfoundthatdeafadults.likehearingadults.correctlyrecalledmoreoftheorthographicallyregularthanoftheorthographicallyirregularletterstrings.SimilarfindingswereobtainedbyDoehring&Rosenstein(1960)inanexperimentwithdeafchildren(ages9-16years).They foundbetterrecallofevetrigrams(pseudowords)thanofeeetrigrams(nonwords).ThesefindingsledGibsonetale(1970)toconcludethat"Theredundancycontributedbyinvariantmappingofspeechsoundsmaywellmakeiteasierforthehearingchildtopickupthecommonspellingpatternsandregularitiesashelearnstoread.butclearlyitcanbedonewithoutthis"(p.71).Thepresentresearchexaminedtheirconclusion.Theabilityofdeafadultstouseorthographicstructureinwordrecognitionandinreportingthelettersofwords wastested.Deafsubjectsinthisresearchwereallcongenitallyandprofoundlydeafadults.Thesepersonsareunabletoacquireknowledgeofspeechbynormalmeans.SincetheorthographyofEnglishreflectsthestructureofthespokenlanguage.thesedeafadultsmaybeexpectedtobelessablethanhearingadultstoacquireknowledgeofthisstructureandtouseit.If.however.assuggestedbyGibsonetal.(1970).abilitytoacquireknowledgeoforthographicstructuredoesnotdepend onavailabilityofnormalspeechinput.thendeafadultsmaystillbeabletoacquirethisknowledge.Toinvestigatewhetherthesedeafadultsdifferfromhearingadultsintheuseoforthographicstructure.theperformanceofagroupofnormally~hearingsubjectswas comparedwiththatofdeafsubjects.Theuseoforthographicstructurewasinvestigatedtestingrecognitionandrecalloffingerspelledletterstrings.FingerspellingisamanualcommunicationsystembasedonEnglishinwhich wordsarespelledoutbythe28sequentialproductionoflettersofthemanualalphabet.AsshowninFigure1,theAmerican manualalphabethasa handshapeforeachletteroftheEnglishalphabet.FingerspellingisusedbothinAmericanSignLanguage(ASLorAmeslan) andinmanualcommunicationsystemsbasedonEnglish.Infingerspelling,wordsarepresentedasatemporallysequentialdisplayofindividuallyproducedletterswithanaveragepresentationrateof20msecperletter(Bornstein,1965).Lettersaredisplayedwiththehandheldinonespatiallocation.Forprintedletters,displaycharacteristicssuchasthismake wordrecognitiondifficult.Withsequentialpresentationofprintedlettersdisplayedinonespatiallocation,normally-hearingreaderscanaccuratelynamewordsonlywhenthedurationofeachletterisatleast375msec(Kohlers&