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Haptics and Protactile Communication

This page includes information and resources about

Haptics, "A standardized system for providing and or receiving visual and environmental information as well as social feedback via touch signals on the body"(HKNC, n.d.) and
Protactile, a practice and philosophy that emerged from "the realization that DeafBlind people’s intuitions about tactile communication are stronger than the intuitions sighted people have" and has changed the way they communicate, work with interpreters, and live (granda & Nuccio, 2018)

Introductory Resources

External Resource
Haptics Video Series (Helen Keller National Center)
External Resource
Q&A: How Pro-Tactile American Sign Language — PTASL — is changing the conversation
External Resource
In One Revolutionary Language, a Community Taps the Power of Touch (Video)
External Resource
Deafblind Communities May Be Creating a New Language of Touch (The New Yorker, May 12, 2022)
An article about the Protactile movement.
External Resource
Protactile: A Language of Touch (PBS American Masters video)

Learn More

Protactile Language Interpreting National Education Program

103 Haptic Signals: A Reference Book

Empowerment Through Touch: Haptic Communication [Recorded Webinar from the Wisconsin Deafblind Technical Assistance Project] - Presented by Ryan Odland, Helen Keller National Center, October 14, 2020

Offline Resource

Article: Edwards, T. (2022). The difference intersubjective grammar makes in protactile DeafBlind communities. Lingua, 272.

References

Helen Keller National Center. (n.d.). Haptics video series.

granda, aj & Nuccio, J. (2018). Protactile principles. Seattle, Washington: Tactile Communications.

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