Washoe |
In 1966, Beatrice and Allan Gardener began a study with
a 10 month old chimpanzee named Washoe. Because of the Yerkes and
Hayes conclusions, the Gardeners chose to teach Washoe American Sign Language.
They tried to teach Washoe in the way a deaf child would be taught, by
example. This didn't work very well however. In order to teach her a sign,
they had to mold her hands. With this instruction, Washoe seemed to learn
signing quite easily and before they knew it she was grouping words together.
One of the things that was said of Washoe and other chimpanzees that learned
to communicate, was that their signs were confined to asking for things
that they want. The Gardeners results showed that Washoe also made
statements for their own sake. Washoe was also the first chimpanzee
to spontaneously create signs of her own. She demonstrated knowledge
of classes of words and rarely confused classes. The Gardeners' suggested
that it was possible that apes might be capable of mastering syntax.
(1) When Washoe moved with Roger Fouts
to Oklahoma, A new phase of hte study was begun. Fouts wanted to see if
Washoe would communicate with other chimpanzees and if she would teach
her offspring to sign. These studies are ongoing at the Chimpanzee
and Human Communication Institute at Central Washington University.(2)
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