Paget Gorman Signed Speech (PGSS)
Basic Principles
In Miles Coverdale Speech and Language Unit, we use PGSS to support children's language development. Paget Gorman signed speech is an augmentative sign system – designed to be used alongside speech and not to replace it – so it gives the listener additional cues and supports understanding of language. All signs are grouped by meaning, under ‘umbrella’ signs called Basic Signs – so all signs to do with plants are based on the basic sign for PLANT e.g. tree, green … this supports comprehension and language and cognitive development. There are 37 Basic Signs like, PLANT, ANIMAL, CONTAINER, on which most signs are based.
How to Sign
- All signs are made between the neck and waist – so they can be seen without covering the mouth – so the listener can use lip reading
- Every sign has an instruction (listed alphabetically in the manual & on the website), which consists of two parts
- a Standard Hand Posture (the shape you make with your hand e.g flat hand, spread hand)
- where you put it and if and how you move it (directions)
Signs
Below are a list of signs that we find most useful and how to make them, modelled by our very own staff!
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Paget – Gorman is a system of hand signs devised by linguist Richard Paget
- He aimed to make signs ‘pantomimic’ so that they represented the word visually e.g. umbrella, jump
- There are over 4000 signs, mainly grouped by meaning with each group based on a Basic Sign e.g. ANIMAL (e.g. horse), FOOD (e.g. eat), TIME (e.g. day, night)
- Unlike many other sign systems it has a grammar … so that by adding a sign (as a prefix/suffix) , verb tenses (e.g. past with TIME hand), plurals (ANIMALs, children) comparatives, can be signed … so that it can be used at any level of complexity … from single words, or 2 word phrases for pupils who are at that stage (e.g. at MCPS) or for key words (to introduce a new concept or prompt , e.g. use of a plural) to ….. signing everything as you say it …e.g.‘She would have been there if she hadn’t forgotten’.
After Paget’s death in 1955, an Australian linguist Pierre Gorman worked with Lady Paget to devise a way of describing each sign so that they would be signed consistently and so that users could look up new signs.
- They came up with Standard Hand Postures to describe the shape you make with your hand and
- Directions for the way the sign points or moves