Created here in the Pacific Northwest, there’s a new language for the DeafBlind called Protactile. There are approximately 45,000-50,000 people in the U.S. who are DeafBlind, with 11,000 of them under the age of 21. While American Sign Language (ASL) depends on visually seen movements of the hands, body, and facial expressions, those who are also deaf have needed interpreters. Protactile, developed over the past 15 years, is a language that uses the grammar of touch.
According to OPB, one of the people at the center of creating this new language is Jelica Nuccio. She recently moved to Monmouth, Oregon, where Western Oregon University just received a grant for $2.1 million from the U.S. Department of Education’s Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) to help train Protactile language interpreters.
Nuccio didn’t start off wanting to create a new language. Her intention was to help those at the DeafBlind Service Center in Seattle to communicate directly with each other without depending on interpreters.
As Nuccio told OPB, “Once we got in touch we realized that we were happening upon some different communication practices. So we brought in some other DeafBlind people and we started interacting using those communication practices. We got a linguistic anthropologist involved. We basically created a space where everyone is DeafBlind and Protactile and asked: ‘If the world was just full of DeafBlind people — there were no hearing or sighted people on the planet — what would we do? How would we do it?’”
Besides being the lead trainer for the DeafBlind Interpreting Institute at WOU, Nuccio also started a company, Tactile Communications, to teach this new way of communicating. There is resistance to touch – many seeing it as taboo. She has learned over the years how to overcome people’s issues so that the DeafBlind can become more autonomous.
Nuccio told OPB she enjoys the small town center of Monmouth where everything is a short walking distance from her office. This is helpful for others coming to the area to learn and experience how to be more independent.
She believes that the Protactile language will have a huge impact on the DeafBlind community interacting with others.
“I really realized how devoid of the human experience information can be when people aren’t connected and touched directly,” Nuccio said. “So touch and Protactile language is the foundation for my life. It truly is. I mean, it allows me to function in the world.”
By Stacey Newman Weldon
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