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The Paget Gorman Sign System, also known as Paget Gorman Signed Speech (PGSS) or Paget Gorman Systematic Sign Language is a manually coded form of the English language, designed to be used with children with speech or communication difficulties.

PGSS was originally developed in Britain by Sir Richard Paget in the 1930s, and later by Lady Grace Paget and Dr Pierre Gorman. The system uses 37 basic signs and 21 standard hand postures, which can be combined to represent a large vocabulary of English words, including word endings and verb tenses. The signs do not correspond to natural signs of the Deaf community.

The system was widespread in Deaf schools in the UK from the 1960s to the 1980s, but since the emergence of British Sign Language and the BSL-based Signed English in deaf education, its use is now described below;

• Paget Gorman Signed Speech (PGSS) is an unaided augmentative sign system that supports language and communication
• It is used in the UK, Ireland and Australia and enables practitioners to support children’s communication effectively
• It is, and can be, used flexibly at many levels in different settings:
  • with children with specific language impairment as a total communication system in language units/bases
  • to support inclusion of children with speech, language and communication needs in mainstream education
  • as a learning tool to support all children to access and understand curriculum vocabulary
  • to support children whose first language is not English
  • it is also taught to parents/carers as well as those working in education

Strengths of the system

Unlike some other augmentative systems, PGSS:

• supports literacy skills, particularly reading, for children who may not be able to vocalise accurately what they read or write
• aids conceptual learning, as signs are grouped in categories which link to each other; this in turn supports word retrieval
• supports the understanding and use of grammar, as the system makes the grammatical rules visual and ‘logical’
• can follow the patterns of English speech whether simple or complex
• can be simplified into prompts to be used to ‘cue’ children with their language or behaviour
• has an extensive lexicon

External links

• PGSS homepage

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