The linguistic abilities of three adult deaf-blind subjects who acquired language through the Tadoma method (involves monitoring a speaker's articulatory motions by placing a hand on his face) were examined. The subjects' English language abilities were excellent, suggesting that the tactile sense is adequate in highly trained Tadoma users in…

Small-set segmental identification experiments were conducted with three deaf-blind subjects who were highly experienced users of the Tadoma method. Systematic variations in the positioning of the hand on the speaker's face for Tadoma produced systematic effects on percent-correct scores, information transfer, and perception of individual…

The study examined the ability of five deaf-blind subjects to receive fingerspelled materials through the tactual sense, and of six deaf subjects to receive fingerspelling through the visual sense. Results found highly accurate tactual reception at normal rates and suggested that rates for visual reception are limited by the rate of manual…

Experienced deaf-blind users (N=10) of sign language tested their ability to receive signed messages including isolated signs and sentences. A set of 122 isolated signs was received with an average accuracy of 87%. Signed sentence reception accuracy ranged from 60-85%, with errors accounted for primarily by deletions and phonological or…

The paper reports the results of preliminary tests of the speechreading ability of a deaf blind adult who uses the Tadoma Method (speechreading based solely on vibrotactile information) for language acquisition and information. (Author/PHR)