Visual Sign Framing

Visual Frame Signing is a kind of sign language, where deaf-blind people feel the signs being communicated to them through physical contact. It can be described as personal communication between the person living with deaf-blindness and the conversational partner where they both use hand touching to feel and understand the signs that is being communicated.

Deaf-blind people also need a method to know how other people react on what they say or do, and visual frame signing is a way for them to do this. In conversation with someone, during a lecture, during a speech or as a participant in other social gatherings everybody has a need to know how other people understand what is being communicated. If a deaf-blind person is making a speech in front of an assembly the Visual Frame Signing gives the opportunity for him to evaluate the audience’s response to what he is saying. Do people laugh? Has he caught their attention? Or are people leaving the room? These observations are easy for seeing and hearing people to pick up on, but deaf-blind people must rely on another person to be by their side and give them this information as signals they can feel.  

Visual Frame Signing can be placed on different parts of the body, for example on the back, the thigh or on the chest, depending on how the individual can best comprehend these signs of sentiment. This method is workable because the person who is passing on the signs does not need to interrupt the deaf-blind speaker to tell him about the response in traditional sign language. Deaf-blind people therefore benefit from this discrete, effective and fluent way of collecting impressions of the surroundings, and Visual Frame Signing contribute to the human intercourse and making it more present and vivid for the deaf-blind speaker.

The Danish Association of the DeafBlind has appointed a group to compose some material to be used to Visual Frame Signing, and they have published a video about the method, where deaf-blind people are the target group. The work is supported by Denmark’s Blind Library’s Development Fond.