Visual similarity between manual and printed alphabet letters

Abstract

This study examined the visual similarity of American manual alphabet letters to their graphic counterparts. Forty-five nondisabled undergraduate college students, who were unfamiliar with the manual alphabet, viewed each of the manual alphabet letters from three angles. Eleven of the 26 manual letters (42%) were correctly identified at one or more viewing angles by more than 50% (23/45) of the subjects. Perhaps more importantly, all of the manual letters were perceived to have some positive degree of similarity to their corresponding graphic letters, and for 65% (17/26) of the manual letters, the subjects perceived a moderate to a very strong degree of similarity. These findings suggest that with minimal training, manual alphabet letters may potentially provide a visual cue for phonologically segmenting and sequencing oral and written language. Implications on the instructional use of fingerspelling to facilitate phonemic awareness for high-risk or reading-impaired children and augmented communicators learning and using graphic letters are further discussed.

• iconicity
• literacy
• reading
• unaided symbols