How many people do you know that know American Sign Language (ASL)? Sign language provides you with positive interests. You may not think ASL might be important to know, but actually knowing sign language can be ideal for oneself. ASL has been known as another way of communication that can help you improve your daily life. Sign language just means communication “spoken” through body language, gestures, and facial expressions. Sign language leads to a major change in communication. ASL was fully recognized in the 1960’s and became popular. Sign language has many benefits because many people in the U.S. are deaf or hard of hearing, it enriches relationships, and it promotes self-esteem and confidence. Therefore, using sign language can be indubitable very helpful for you but also there are a few cons against ASL. First, sign language requires the use of hands. Without the use of hands it could be a problem for the people who does not acquire the full use of hands. Any issues within the use of hands such as a broken arm can limit communication (Burke, "Advantages & Disadvantages of Sign Language"). Within ASL, communication requires the use of hands at all times. Without the use of hands and being deaf, how can you communicate with others. This will be challenging for one. Despite, sign language has no written component. Deaf or hard of …show more content…
hearing people has to pick up and adjust to their hearing or read lips. Sign language can be a better choice for the deaf people. If a deaf person knew all the signs of ASL, maybe he/she could assemble a written component of ASL (Burke, "Advantages & Disadvantages of Sign Language"). If ASL was written, then many would more likely be involved and schools will be able to consider this as a new language, although some schools do teach this, we need more. A written component would be an easier way if one can not hear or read lips, they would read. Above all, mixing signs can lead to a tremendous impact. When one mixes a sign up with a different sign, one can lead to miscommunication, one-self or the deaf may assume a different thought. Other than miscommunication one can also lead the deaf to a feeling of embarrassment or any other feeling. The way the deaf people feel differs from the way a normal hearing person. The deaf people show their feelings through facial expressions. One like a hearing person, we can express our feeling through words and through communication and talking out with others. Sign language can be fulfilled with beneficiaries. Almost 10 percent of the people are either deaf or hard of hearing. Studies show the percentage of deaf people-adults (75 and older) 47%, Adults (65-74 of age ) 30%, Adults (24-64 of age) 18%, but also 12.3% of these people are affected by tinnitus (Admin, "Facts and Statistics on Deafness and Sign Language"). Tinnitus simply means that one will hear ringing or buzzing sounds in the ear. Also, 3/4 children are affected by ear infections, 4,000 of these people are diagnosed with sudden deafness (Admin, "Facts and Statistics on Deafness and Sign Language"). Deafness can happen at any point in life. Age does not necessarily define whether one will or will not become deaf. Several people say that when one gets aged, one will eventually become deaf or hard of hearing. Most of these times this fact that when one grows old and lose their ability to hear may be considered true. But this could be a false statement since not only being elderly one will lose their hearing. Kids and young adults are deaf, which identifies this statement false. There are various types of causes to why the people become deaf or hard of hearing. The greater common causes of deafness are: hereditary deafness, premature births, illness of the brain, bacterial infestations that affect the brain and/or inner ear, bacterial infestation that affects the middle ear, chemical damage, severe mechanical damage to the brain or ear, excessive loud noises, or aging a normal phenomenon.. Due to these causes ASL would be an advantage. Those with Autism or Down syndromes or any disabled child has shown that sign language is a very good way to communicate. Although sign language is non-verbal, it provides the highest quality of interacting with each other. The more use of sign language the easier it becomes. Studies has shown that babies, as young as 5 or 6 months has been using the basic sign language to initiate communication. Communication is essential for the emotional development of all children (Corley, "Benefits of Sign Language"). Babies and young children have been tested for a while using ASL, and this has improved their IQ’s than someone who does not learn ASL at the same age. Although sign language has numerous benefits, it enriches relationships. Sign language can help communicate appropriately with the deaf ones. The deaf people will have and feel more confident when talking. As the interaction between a child and a parent is more active and understood. There is a definite element of trust, empathy, and understanding (Powell, "7 Benefits of Sign Language"). Each party feels valued and the number of negative interactions are lessened. Therefore sign language builds up a stronger family relationship. Deaf children has the benefit of communicating comfortable with the people around. Feeling comfortable with communicating allows the deaf to develop a personality. The deaf create a different world within their imagination and plant our world in their imagination. Spending time with family who knows sign language can bond the family together. According to the survey above taken at West Mecklenburg High school of 77 students, sign language would be a great opportunity and something distinct. Several students at West Mecklenburg High School agreed that they would sign up or a sign language class. West Mecklenburg High School should include Sign Language as another foreign language class. (Romero, "Values Of Sign Language "). Although it may not be spoken or written, it can be shown and demonstrated through facial expressions and hand movement. People should receive what they are actually interested in learning to achieve what or who they want to really be as an older person. According to the chart above, a frequent amount of students who attend West Mecklenburg High school has not met a person who can actually use sign language well enough.
The percentages are close enough to each other, but there should be more of these deaf or hard of hearing people into society. If there were more deaf people into society, there would be more interactions within those who can speak and has learned or took a sign language class, rather than those who has not. Many students should take advantage of what can be done now to make a change in society. So the world can greet those who are different from each
other. The majority of the students that have been surveyed answered yes to knowing or met of a deaf person. But does the rest of the people that stand on earth know? There’s so much data to gather upon humans and knowing if sign language can be beneficial. Although sign language can be incredibly beneficial for oneself. Knowing that most of the kids that answered the survey know or met a deaf person seems that ⅕ of every 10 students may know (Romero, "Values Of Sign Language "). If schools were to come upon each other and make a great decision, we should have ASL involved into the schools program. Every person has different instincts and one will choose language as their big thing. Sign language would be different than any other language that can be spoken because sign language can be spoken through the movement of hands and facial expression. Also, the use of sign language is a healthy and it will make one a more useful person. Sign language has proven that it increases IQ's. Acredolo and Goodwyn tested the original participants’ IQ's when they were 8 children who had signed as babies scored, on average, 12 points higher than the children in the non-signing control groups (Powell, "7 Benefits of Sign Language"). Young children starting at the age of 6 months can start to develop their mind and open up towards an older person and interact with them. Children are smart and anything one does they can portrait the same thing and by this way they can learn very fast. Fast learning can always be a good thing in children because it makes them smarter but also more efficient. In conclusion, seek new opportunities to learn not just a language but to use it as well. If one does this, the deaf would find a place in this world to feel very confident within themselves. They would have the opportunity to do something like others and many people. There would be life within them. And this world would not be divided into categories, it would be united as one whole. With no discrimination and nothing against each other. “There also seems to be a cultural barrier between the deaf people, and what is called “the hearing world” by the deaf community. As with their other instances, being unaware of the deaf community and who they are is preventing people from being able to coincide with a group that could teach us hearing-folks so much. Most people,unless they have taken ASL class or personally know someone who is deaf, are ignorant of the deaf community. This ignorance fosters a discomfort, which I am sure many of those who do not know ASL have felt if they have ever tried to converse with someone who is deaf” (Rivito, "Why We Need To Teach ASL In Schools"). Aside from boosting personal awareness and self esteem, having the ability to connect with the larger Deaf community gives children who are deaf the option to communicate with other people who share the common experience of deafness. Offering the deaf or hard of hearing (HoH) children the advantage of bilingualism provides them with the ability to access deaf society if they so choose (Callis, "5 Great Reasons To Establish A Bilingual ASL Household").
... consider is whether or not to use ASL in the home. This issue is important because if you try to force the Deaf to hear they might not grow because they will have no form of communication to use with other people. Even though the doctors might say to not use ASL, this will greatly hinder your child's well being in the long run.
The movie “Audism Unveiled” was a very interesting and powerful movie. I never realized that deaf individuals are discriminated against. This could be partly because I have never been immersed in or educated about the deaf culture until this year. One of the things that struck me the most while watching “Audism Unveiled” was the many heart wrenching stories about children being unable to communicate with their own non-signing hearing families.. The deaf child would have to ask their family members, why everyone was laughing or what’s going on. The family members would just tell them “I’ll tell you later” or “Nevermind. It’s not important”, resulting in the individual feeling isolated. Personally, I agree with people saying that if a parent has a deaf child they should learn how to sign; communication is what brings families together. As a result, the most intriguing thing to me was the stories of family members never learning American Sign Language; leaving their family member isolated.
In my family, I have a close cousin who is Deaf, and I know that many of my family members have questions about Deaf culture but are too afraid to ask. I felt the same way, which was a main reason I decided to take the ASL class. The class not only opened my mind to the study of American Sign Language, but also how Deaf culture is used in our society. This book has helped me learn a lot, from ways to respect Deaf people and to understand them, which is why I have advised my family to give the book a look as well. I definitely agree with points this book makes, because nearly all of them relate to today’s society and the world that we live in right now. Although, occasionally, some points were a bit confusing and took me off-guard, I performed some critical thinking on it and made a list of those I didn’t quite understand or agree with.
While the benefits for the hearing are great, there are better benefits for those who are Deaf. Jarashow stated that it was essentially frowned upon if a Deaf child was using sign instead of trying to use what ability they had to hear. This seems counterproductive and if they emphasized more on teaching Deaf children ASL, there would be better outcomes for them in the future. Instead of focusing on trying to make everyone the same, they should focus on giving these children the best opportunity possible despite their
Many hearing people do not take the time to listen to the Deaf community as they just assume that they are being “selfish” as they do not want to change. The Deaf community does not want the hearing community to change them. If we try to change the Deaf community, we are trying to change their language and culture. The Deaf community relies on American Sign Language just as many of us rely on English. We would not want anyone to try to convince us to change our language just so we can communicate with the general population. Being deaf is not a disability, but rather a culture that most of the hearing community is going to have to
In American Sign Language a major part of the language entails being able to express emotions and types of questions through the use of non- manual signals such as when asking a yes-no question the eyebrows will go up but when asking a wh-question such as what the eyebrows go down. Another way to express something is through mouth morphemes this is the way your mouth is shaped to convey different meanings, such as size and grammar. Non-manual signals and mouth morphemes are just as important as any sign and enrich the language to make it possible to effectively communicate.
In the Unites States and Canada, an estimated range of 500,00 to 2 million people speak/use American Sign Language. According to the Census Bureau, ASL is the leading minority language after Spanish, Italian German and French. ASL is the focal point of Deaf Culture and nothing is dearer to the Deaf people’s hearts because it is a store of cultural knowledge and also a symbol of social identity, and social interactions. It is a fully complete, autonomous and natural language with complex grammar not derived and independent of English. ASL is visual manual, making visual manual words, moving the larger articulators od the limbs around in space. English uses audible words using small muscles
Dr Jim Cromwell has also found that those deaf children who are being educated in mainstream schools are not getting the education that they be worthy of. There is not enough support for them, they are being helped by teaching assistants with level 2 BSL, which is less than an O-Level.
Many people of society perceive deafness to be a disability a person has at which causes them to lack the power of hearing. Many of the people whom choose to believe that those who are deaf are disabled rather than possess a simple difference amongst them have most likely never had the chance to learn about deaf culture. Only about two or three out of every thousand children are born with detectable levels of hearing loss in the United States and an entire ninety percent of deaf kids are born to two fully hearing parents. (NIDCD) Therefore, it may be possible that a large portion of society views deafness as a disability due to the lack of background knowledge on Deaf culture.
When children are born and as they grow most of what they learn to speak is from hearing their parents talk but what if they couldn 't hear? How would they learn? Its pretty simple actually. They wouldn 't learn. Those who were born hearing but got sick or eventually lost their hearing learned a few things and use them but, eventually they turn to ASL to be able to communicate with others and be able to further their education. When having to learn this language you have to keep many things in mind such as handshape, palm orientation, location, movement and facial expression, all of those things are crucial to being able to speak this language correctly. While this language has been around for many years there are still things that don 't have an ASL name and in those cases you would do something called finger spelling, where you spell out what you are trying to say in order to get your point across.(Learning Sign Language,2) As every language you are learning a whole different way of saying things and you are also opening yourself to those who can’t really open themselves to you. The deaf community do really try to not be a burden to us. They learn to read lips or even talk because they were forced to. A couple a years ago they were restricted from learning ASL and were punished if they tried to sign. (About sign
ASL for me has had a really positive impact on my life. My father, who is roughly 65, has experienced quite a bit of hearing loss due to his age. He can’t really hear most of what I say and I do whatever I can to lower the pitch a speak from my diaphragm in order to get him to hear me. My mother has had an easier time with this and is able to communicate everything to him that he can’t hear. Honestly it’s be heartbreaking that he can’t hear me say “I love you,” sometimes. This communication barrier drove me to learn sign. While, I understand that he would never learn sign and he doesn’t have much reason to right now, he isn’t the only person I have a communication barrier with. I realized that I could do something that would enable me to interact
Visual language as such as sign language is the concept of gesture, body language, facial expression, and movement. Sign languages had many different languages in the world; for example, Mexican Sign Language, Japanese Sign Language, Chinese Sign Language, langue des signes Francaise, American sign language, etc. In the present day, million Deaf Americans use American Sign Language to use communicate each other as a visual language in anywhere includes America, Canada, and some countries. It is not audio language, but it is an official languages recognized since 1988 by the government due issue of Deaf President Now for protest by Gallaudet students and Deaf people at capitol hill and Gallaudet University in Washington D.C. American Sign Language
American Sign Language or ASL is a language used by Deaf or hard of hearing individuals. It is important that American Sign Language becomes a part of the language list for people to fill it. Now it is absolutely unethical to not include this language. Many people think ASL is just acting out English, however, it is far from. ASL has its own grammatical structure and writing system. In fact, ASL is closely related to French Sign Language or FSL. It was not made with English in mind.
Learning sign language was a big part of my life. I originally learned the language to get around the rules in the cafeteria my fifth grade year, and now here I am, advocating for the deaf community. I always thought sign was something everyone should at least know the basics of, but as I get older and I see the deaf all around me I know it’s more than that. We learn German and French as second languages, but why does no one teach sign language? Are we really more likely to go to France than meet someone who is hearing impaired? So many are surprised to have someone understand them, and that just isn’t
Did you know that half of the kids that are born today turn out to be deaf? Studies have proven that parents that are both hearing could have deaf children. People are telling them that they should get a cochlear implant. If you guys didn’t know what a cochlear implant is, it would be that you get to hear and talk like a normal human being. Half the deaf people don’t want to get a cochlear implant because it is really dangerous. I strongly believe that schools should teach sign language in schools. Yes there is school for the deaf and it is called Iowa School for the Deaf, but some people don’t want to go there and they just want to be around regular people and not get looked at funny or made fun of. Kids just want to live a normal life among other kids and have friends and not have to worry about looking at the interpreted while they are trying to do their work.