Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 3, 1993 TAG: 9310070414
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS
DATELINE: ELLENSBURG, WASH. LENGTH: Long
From the movie ``Doctor Doolittle.''
One chimp asks for milk. Another organizes a game of chase. Later, chimps open a package of toys sent by admirers.
This isn't a ``Planet of the Apes'' movie.
It's the Chimpanzee & Human Communication Institute, a research project that is teaching five chimps to speak in sign language.
Director Roger Fouts, a Central Washington
University psychology professor, says the research can yield data in how animals think. The work is also useful in teaching communication skills to autistic children.
``With the chimps we observe and adapt our interests to them,'' Fouts said. ``With autistic children we do the same thing: observe, and see what grabs and gets their attention.''
Right now we have the attention of Washoe, 27, who comes right up to the protective glass to peer at a visitor.
``This is the first of its kind in terms of language,'' Fouts said of Washoe, who began learning sign language in 1966 and is considered the first animal to acquire a human language.
Washoe was raised as if she were a deaf child by scientists at the University of Nevada, where Fouts was a graduate student when he met the chimp in 1967.
The scientists realized that chimpanzees in the wild communicate more with gestures than voices. Washoe was taught to use American Sign Language in dealing with humans. Three other chimps, Moja, Dar and Tatu, were taught in a similar fashion.
The youngest chimp, Loulis, was raised as an adopted child by Washoe in an experiment to see if an animal could acquire a human language from another animal.
Humans were not allowed to sign around Loulis from 1979-1984, when it was verified that the chimp was signing.
Verification occurs when a sign is recorded by three different observers for 15 consecutive days.
Fouts and his wife Debbi, co-director of the institute, moved the chimps to the University of Oklahoma in 1970. In 1980 they decided to seek better facilities by moving to CWU in this small town 100 miles east of Seattle.
Do the chimps really talk in sign language?
Some critics have contended the signs just imitate what the researchers are doing and are not logical.
Indeed, many of the gestures appear to be little more than hand and finger movements, interpreted by the researchers.
But the Foutses contend their videotapes of the chimps signing to each other, when humans are not around, prove the animals can communicate.
Not that the conversations are terribly complex. Washoe, the most accomplished, has a vocabulary of about 240 words, the Foutses say.
Much of the signing is single word commands, like chase, gum, out, person, hurry and flower.
In talking to the chimps, the Foutses have found that body language such as head bobs, bent arms with open palms, and smiling without exposing teeth help get the message across. The flash of teeth is viewed as a threat by the chimps.
It can seem odd that a screaming, spitting chimpanzee pounding on inch-thick, bulletproof glass is a tool that could help autistic children.
But autistic and other noncommunicative children also may learn differently, in the same way the chimps do, the Foutses say.
The key is to look at what individual autistic children seek and what they avoid and try to adapt communication based on that behavior, they say.
Because it is a research project, the chimps are not regularly open to the public.
But the institute runs regular ``chimposiums,'' where visitors pay $15 to hear lectures on the chimps and then to observe them. The two-hour sessions - the last was Labor Day weekend - are one way the Foutses raise money to care for the animals.
It costs $200,000 per year to maintain the chimps and the research. None of that money comes from the state. Rather, it is raised from foundations, donations and other fund-raising devices. The Foutses acknowledge that money has become a problem.
Perhaps the best ambassadors are the chimps themselves, whether they are swinging from ropes in their play area, climbing across the ceiling of the building, or signing to groups of visitors.
The chimps also appear to talk to themselves in sign language, they said.
The chimps eat the same thing the humans eat, Fouts said. This day they lunched on lentil soup, using spoons and bowls.
The animals typically react to new students and attendants by spitting at them and displaying raw aggression, Fouts said.
The young males seem to respond best to attractive human females, and sometimes view human males with hostility, Fouts said.
The animals are enjoying a new $2.3 million home, funded by the Legislature, that includes a 32-foot-tall outdoor area for swinging and climbing. It opened during the summer.
For 13 years the chimps shared just 300 square feet of living space on the third floor of the school's psychology building.
Their new home is 7,000 square feet, and also includes sleepin
g cages, a kitchen and laundry facilities for the clothes they sometimes wear.
It has allowed them to live outside for the first time in 13 years. As result, some suffered from sunburn in the first weeks.
Researchers take pains to vary the chimps' diet, play games, read books and converse with the animals to keep them stimulated.
Hanging on the building's walls are paintings by the chimps. They are nonrepresentational splashes of color that resemble the works of preschoolers - or some adult artists.
The building also includes air conditioning, a luxury that was recently denied at the state-owned home of CWU President Ivory Nelson after students protested the costs.
Fouts said the chimps deserve the comfortable quarters.
``They didn't volunteer to come here,'' Fouts said. ``They are incarcerated. We have an obligation to do the best we can for them.''
For visiting dates and reservations, call 1-800-752-4380.
by CNB