AllDeaf.com - View Single Post - SEE (Signing Exact English) is the best sign language for a child to start with..

BecLak · 02-09-2011, 05:17 AM

Wirelessly posted

Quote:

Originally Posted by SilenceGold

Quote:

Originally Posted by deafbajagal

Then, by your definition, I'm extremely unintelligent and a backward-thinker. Which is fine by me. Luckily I know better than to be defined by numbers and systems. I define myself.

Measuring intelligence with language and/or communication mode isn't advisable. That is exactly how the misconstrued views of what intelligence really means started from. Especially for deaf people.

You can't speak, therefore you are dumb. The more you know English, the smarter you are. Those myths thrive, even today. It's perfectly fine if someone is incompetent in English but is fluent in ASL. English is NOT superior to ASL. It's not a hearing world. It's a world full of many languages. And ASL is one of them. If a deaf person can't read or write at all but is very fluent in ASL, then my hat is off to him/her. Being fluent in one language is better than being "okay" in two languages.

No - You are able to obtain knowledge independently because you already was a proficient user of English when you graduated from high school. It is because you're not one of those who has went through a life of using only ASL and went through a state sponsored deaf school the entire time. Therefore, you have been able to master reading a novel, self educational, or any other reading materials at time of graduation. Also you have some education from college that is "different" than most of the college education that other pro-ASL students would acquire - they had more dependency on ASL than you did.

I have been hoping to find SOMEONE who, only used ASL their entire life and never had oral education, had achieved the ability to be a "forward thinker"..it would prove my opinion about the importance of SEE being wrong.

Forward thinking as you phrase it is not acquired by mastering language but generally by parental teaching of life observations. It has nothing to do with the acquisition of language.