Hands that See, Hands that Speak: Investigating Relationships Between Sensory Activity, Forms of Communicating and Mathematical Cognition

Abstract

This contribution explores the role of the body's senses in the constitution of mathematical practices. It examines the mathematics activities of learners with disabilities, with the idea being that by identifying the differences and similarities in the practices of those whose knowledge of the world is mediated through different sensory channels, we might not only become better able to respond to their particular needs, but also to build more robust understandings of the relationships between experience and cognition more generally. To focus on connections between perceptual activities, material and semiotic resources and mathematical meanings, the discussion concentrates on the mathematical practices of learners who see with their hands or who speak with their hands. This discussion centres around two examples from our research with blind learners and deaf learners and, in particular, analyses the multiple roles played by their hands in mathematical activities.

Changing perspectives on inclusive mathematics education: Relationships between research and teacher education

“…A little while back I would have been a bit, a bit prejudiced in this respect. I don't know if I would have looked at say MusiCALcolorida 5 and thought that in fact I 4 For more details on the embodied nature of the sense-making processes of the deaf students during this task see Healy (2012). 5 MusiCALcolorida is a digital calculator which represents numbers colourfully and musically as well as numerically, more details about its use with blind students, deaf students and students without was working with equivalent fractions, with recurring decimals.…”

Gesture Analysis of Children with Special Needs in Solving Mathematics Problems

“…The study of CSN gestures in mathematics learning is still rare, even though it is interesting to study because every motoric movement performed by CSN during the learning process describes cognitive that are compensated through nonverbal communication. Some previous studies by Cermak et al, (1980), McNeill (1985), Radford (2008), Goldin-Meadow et al (2009), Healy (2015), Mustafa (2015), and Mustafa et al (2016) explain the role and function of gesture in the learning. Every gesture produced by the teacher during the learning process will be imitated by the students and help them to understand every meaning and concept of the material.…”

Sign Language in Light of Mathematics Education: An Exploration Within Semiotic and Embodiment Theories of Learning Mathematics

“…Healy and colleagues investigated gestural and signed expression of Deaf learners in geometric and algebraic contexts, and in the context of engaging with educational technology, setting a focus on the use of sign languages in the mathematics discourse (Healy, 2015;Fernandes & Healy, 2014;Healy et al, 2016;Magalhães & Healy, 2007). In a study carried out in a bilingual Brazilian classroom with five deaf and three hearing students, Healy (2015) described the development and use of signs and gestures in a mixed collaboration of a hearing and a deaf student (where "the hearing student in this pair spoke some LIBRAS and the deaf student was partially oralised" (p. 296)) when exploring and expressing symmetry and reflection through a Logoprogrammed 'microworld' (expressive digital media based on principles such as invention, play and discovery, Papert, 1980). Similarly, Fernandes and Healy (2014), in a study in Brazil with six Deaf students, using a microworld "designed to encourage students to produce a variable procedure" (p. 51), observed the creation of a signed denotation of a variable n as fixed unknown value by one of the students.…”

“…Inventing and negotiating ad-hoc signs in order to collaborate, the students embody their experiences in signs that reflect not only the specific case, but the students' shared conceptual understanding of the mathematical idea they encountered. Healy (2015) terms signs recalling an action through which the signed mathematical concept has been explored "imagined reenactments" (p. 305).…”