Hablar el Lenguaje de las Manos Hacia las Manos (Talking the Language of the Hands to the Hands). DB-LINK.

This paper examines the importance of hands for the person who is deafblind, reviews hand development, and identifies specific teaching skills that facilitate hand development and expressiveness in persons who are deafblind. It notes that the hands of a deafblind individual serve not only as tools but also as sense organs (to compensate for their missing vision and hearing) and as the primary means of expression. The literature is reviewed on the role of hands in early development in general, hand development in the child who is blind, hand development in the child who is deaf, and hand development in the child who is deafblind. Among 13 suggested teaching strategies are: (1) watch and/or touch the individual's hands and learn to read them; (2) use the teacher's hand under the child's hand to respond to exploration, to initiate topics, and to express feeling; (3) make your hands available for the child to use as he/she wishes; (4) play interactive hand games frequently; (5) make environmental provisions to encourage hand activity; (6) invite the child who is deafblind to have frequent tactual access to the environment; (7) make language accessible to the hands of the person who is deafblind; and (8) become aware of your own hands as carriers of feelings and pragmatic functions. An "afterword" by Harlan Lane suggests that people with deafblindness can teach others how to channel information through the tactile sense. (CR)