Sign Supported English

Also called SSE, Signed English, Sign Supported Speech

BSL signs placed in English word order alongside speech, used by many deaf people who grew up with English and by hearing families.

What it is

Sign Supported English is spoken English with BSL signs added in English order. You say the sentence and sign it word by word, or key word by key word, using signs from British Sign Language, but you keep English grammar throughout. It is not a language; it is English made visible on the hands.

It is worth separating from Signed English, which is a fuller and now rarely used system that tried to represent every English word ending with an extra sign. SSE is looser and more practical, and most people who say they use SSE mean spoken English with signs for the words that matter.

It sits between two things that are both more clearly defined. BSL is a language with its own grammar. Makaton and Signalong are published programmes with a fixed vocabulary. SSE is what a great many people, deaf and hearing, actually do in the middle.

Who it can help

Deaf people who grew up with English as their first language, often those who became deaf later or were educated orally and learned to sign as adults. For them English is the language they think in, and signs in English order are a natural support for lip-reading and hearing aids in a noisy room.

Hearing parents of a deaf child often start with SSE because it lets them keep talking while they learn, and that is reasonable as a first step. It is not, on its own, enough for a deaf child who cannot hear speech well, because it gives that child English through a channel that is only partly accessible. The National Deaf Children's Society is careful to say that families should have the chance to learn full BSL as well. A child who needs a first language needs a language, and SSE is not one.

In a mainstream classroom with a deaf pupil, a communication support worker may use SSE because it follows the teacher's English word for word, which suits some pupils and not others.

How it works

The signs are BSL signs, so the handshapes and movements are the same. What changes is the order: English order, and English function words like is, the and of are usually left out, or fingerspelled, or mouthed rather than signed. Lip pattern carries a lot in SSE, because the English word is meant to be read from the mouth at the same time as the sign is seen.

A fluent BSL user watching SSE can follow it, in the way a French speaker can follow a beginner's word-for-word French, but the grammatical information that BSL carries in the face, the space and the verb movement is mostly absent. SSE users who then learn BSL often describe the moment the grammar arrives as the moment the language stops being hard work.

Getting started

If you are a hearing parent and your child has just been identified as deaf, learn signs this week, and use them in English order while you learn, because something now is better than fluency in a year. Ask your Teacher of the Deaf about the family sign course the National Deaf Children's Society runs, and ask about BSL classes too, so SSE is a bridge and not a destination.

If you are deaf and English is your language, an SSE or BSL Level 1 class at a local Deaf centre will teach you the vocabulary, and using it with other deaf people will teach you the rest. Signature courses are the standard route.

At work, if a deaf colleague uses SSE, learning fifty signs and using them makes a difference out of proportion to the effort.

Where to get help

The National Deaf Children's Society for families of deaf children, and it explains the choices between BSL, SSE and spoken English without pushing one. RNID for adults with hearing loss. Signature for qualifications, and the British Deaf Association for the language itself. The Health A-Z entry on deafness and hearing loss covers the medical side.