Manualism is a method of education of deaf students using sign language within the classroom.[1]
While working at Gallaudet University in the 1970s, William Stokoe felt that American Sign Language was a language in its own right; with its own independent syntax and grammar. Stokoe classified the language into five parts which included: handshapes, orientation, location, movement, and facial expression, in which much of the meaning of the sign is clarified as well as the grammar of the sentence expressed.[2] Some sign languages, such as American Sign Language, have been promoted as the traditional way of communication for deaf people.[3] Manualism is combined with oralism as the contemporary technique for the education of deaf students.[4]