ecp

I do wish that deaf kids would be allowed to learn sign language. Hearing babies are taught sign language to help develop their language abilities so why wouldn't learning sign language also help deaf kids?

I know that the sign vs. oral is a touchy issue but from a neurological point of view, exposure to language in as many forms as possible as early as possible builds neural connections that make future learning easier.
Kids raised in bilingual families generally do well in school. Learning 2 languages early increases the size of the grey matter in the language area of the brain.. Also, bilingualism has other benefits.
Science (washingtonpost.com)
With all the scientific evidence of bi and multilingualism why should deaf kids be deprived of the benefits of learning multiple languages?

I hope I didn't just start world war 3. It is something that was brought up while teaching my hearing niece and nephew some signs. The kiddo's parents are professors and had a student who was deaf who told them about not being allowed to sign. I'm deaf so they asked me about it when I visited a few months ago. A friend of theirs, also a professor, did her research on some aspect of d/Deaf culture. We ended up discussing the issue over a bottle of wine. We all agreed (except that the professor friend accused me of not being big D deaf- I told her that I prefer to be "big d slash little d deaf" (D/deaf)).

What do you think? Is it ironic that "Baby sign language" is promoted for hearing babies but often parents of deaf babies are told not to sign with their children? (please keep things civil)

Deafness

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Jiro

repost!

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ecp

Is "repost" a bad thing? I haven't seen a discussion about the neurocognitive benefits of bilingualism on the forum.
I have seen people arguing pro and con about signing and oralism with neither side considering the debate from a scientific standpoint.

KarissaMann05

Yeah ... Cos people tend to think deaf people needs to be fixed.

That is why I see so many deaf kids who can speak in my area. OH, NO! YOU CAN'T USE SIGN LANGUAGE!! USE YOUR VOICE ONLY!! Only hearing children are allowed cos they can hear, and you can't. You little poor thing!

Whatever.

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inspirabull

We humans have gone on into this new century just any old way really - lots of really visionary people of the last century were ignored. The whole business of pulling back and reassessing how we do things is basically hindered by so many things that it is really hard to pull the whole of civilization and modern thought forward as a whole. We have to go through this torturous process of getting smart in a new century. Discourse like this is very helpful. Thanks!

shel90

This is something that I am VERY passionate about and something that continues to PISS me off.

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Shel~

"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

dogmom

I have read on the threads before about this and agree that it is ironic, but more so, a WRONG thing - for hearing kids to have all this access to ASL or a sign language < I have seen the classes listed here where I am and whenever I go to bookstore I can easily find gads of books on "baby sign" but try to find anything on ASL as a language in general and maybe I'll find ONE book> - and then d/Deaf kids are refused it.

Mrs Bucket

This is why the DBC is advocating for equal rights and equal accessibility to communication using ASL and Bi-Bi.

Deaf Bilingual Coalition - Mission Statement

"The Deaf Bilingual Coalition promotes the basic human right of all Deaf infants and young children to have access to language and cognitive development through American Sign Language."

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Daredevel7

To me, baby signs don't really count, because they never develop into more than that. So there isn't true bilingualism here for hearing people....

Teaching a hearing and deaf baby signing have incredibly different outcomes. Teaching them signs most likely increases both of their vocabulary but it rarely would affect the hearing baby's future. However, for the deaf baby's future, aren't you pretty much guaranteeing that the baby goes to a deaf school? I am not saying deaf schools are bad, but I'm saying that's why parents are reluctant to teach a deaf baby sign and not hearing babies, because there seems to be so much potential impact on the baby's future.

I never understood the comparison "If they can teach hearing babies ASL, why not the deaf babies?" because it's just apples and oranges to me...

Mrs Bucket

You haven't met Joe.

He's hearing, 4 years old, multilingual and just won't stop asking what the sign is for this and that.

Oh yes, he's my nephew.

His first language was ASL. English came second to Spanish and French.

He would say this.. "Awty Pawty, how dew yew say dis?" *mimics sign*.. I'll teach him how to do it.

3 months old, he started picking up milk, food, Mommy, Daddy.

His face brightened up with I signed milk, showed him the bottle. I signed milk, he'd look for the bottle.

The same for food.

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CJB

I'm confused... why would that guarantee sending the child to a deaf school?

I think it's also a matter of "Sign for babies" is a cute thing a lot of hearing parents like to brag about, how it makes their children smarter and all that. But with deaf babies it becomes too much of a "way of life" and is therefore out of the comfort zone of most hearing people. Sign for babies is just as much ASL exposure as a baby can get while remaining in the comfort zone of the hearing parents.

Bottesini

And it does just start a war every time. We are deaf people and should just be promoting and advocating ASL for deaf babies. Forget the language of the hearing babies.

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inspirabull

Is this approach of it being one way or the other restricted to the United States? Or is it controversial in other lands as well?

ecp

In many countries, people grow up speaking more than one language. A kid in Kenya could be fluent in 2 or more languages- Kiswahili, English and French (I used my ex-boyfriend as an example here).

I grew up with english at home and asl and english at school. In middle and highschool I learned Latin and Ancient Greek (which allows me to read French and Spanish) and took some Italian. In college I learned Irish. I'm like Mrs Bucket's nephew except that I'm d/Deaf.
Growing up with english and ASL laid the neural pathways for later language learning. My dreams are usually in ASL and I often learn best by signing a concept.

My parents have always had a philosophy that if you don't limit a kid, and have high expectations, the kid will achieve and surpass expectations.

I think the bi-bi method is good but why stop at 2 languages? Local elementary schools teach kids spanish for a few weeks, then french, then italian. By presenting multiple languages to kids, the kids make connections and begin to understand the structure of language.
I worked at a preschool during college and it was my job to sign everything I said. There was one deaf student, but I wasn't there to teach her sign language but to expose all the kids to sign language. Everything in the classroom was labeled with English, Spanish, French, German and ASL tags. During hand washing the kids got to choose from 15 languages to count in (with the teacher's help and the numbers were posted on the wall for the teachers because we were mere college students and none of us spoke all 15 languages.) We read the kids books in english then spanish then english. I signed books while the head teacher read them. Amazingly, the 3 and 4 year old kids picked up all sorts of language. Many of the kids were professors' kids and spoke one language at home and one at preschool.

One last example. I used to babysit one of my high school teachers kids. The teacher was fluent in German, Italian, French and taught Latin and Greek. He and his wife decided to raise the kids in a multi lingual environment. The teacher only spoke to the kids in Italian, his wife spoke in both english and Spanish. When I babysat the kid, we would read books in Italian and English. He would say something in Italian and if I didn't understand he would try spanish or english. The kid had multiple ways to get his point across. He was 3.

I would imagine that if deaf kids were given the opportunity to learn multiple languages they would do very well. Deaf children of deaf adults who sign do very well academically.

Basically- a kids brain is a sponge until about 9 years of age. Establishing a solid first language or two (ASL and English) is essential. Relying on the least useful sense for deaf kids seems counterintuitive. Limiting language exposure in the early years for fear that the kid will only sign seems cruel.

rockdrummer

I keep hearing people say that hearing parents of deaf babies are told not to use sign language. THIS IS NOT TRUE! I AM A CASE IN POINT and I know many other hearing parents that are too. That said, I do believe that if someone opts for a CI then naturally they will want to go down the path of spoken language. Otherwise why on earth would you get a CI? But I also know of many parents that have chosen a CI that still do use sign language too. So I don't know where all of these claims come from. And there are never any facts or sources to back them up. Please stop with the misinformation.

shel90

Misinformation? My mother was one as well as many of my deaf friends' parents were. My son's deaf friend's parents were told not to use sign language with their daughter. She is only 4 years old so that was recent.

It is not misinformation. There was a thread here about a CI doctor who stated that his goal was to make sign language history. His words I believe were, "sign language would only be used by the older deaf people as the younger deaf children won't need it."

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Mrs Bucket

I do not know where you get the misinformation from.

You know the quotes, "I heard, someone told me, I read this..", they all are considered misinformation.

You need to be actively involved with the Deaf Community and learn information by living the life of a Deaf person.

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inspirabull

everyone should know sign language deaf or not. We all do already really- put any two people together with no previous knowledge of a specific sign language method and require them to communicate without language. In a very short amount of time you will have communication. They will become able to convey complex ideas rapidly.

dreama

Thanks for sharing. I find it very interesting. My parents started by teaching me french, then they tried to teach me English. I got very confused and stopped speaking. I wonder if they had taught me sign language if I'd been able to master french like my hearing brother.

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shel90

Rockdrummer, read post #8 in the thread started by south_momma in the thread called "newbie needs advice". That's proof of a situation where a parent was told not to use ASL with her child.

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ecp

I like your thinking. I had my first ever Vocational Rehabilitation meeting today. It was weird, the Deaf specialist couldn't sign. She started out typing everything but I just told her to give me the forms to fill out and that she did not need to explain the forms to me.
It was almost insulting, they assumed that I could barely read and asked if I needed help finishing my GED. When I told them I had a Bachelor's degree from a very well known liberal arts college I got a funny look, like "why are you here?"
It was awkward to explain that I'm here because I need new hearing aids and without them I can't get into medical school despite being qualified. I got counseling about "realistic expectations" and then I got to explain that the class I didn't do well in was because my hearing went from severe to profound in a few weeks AND I had the worst professor ever.

RockDrummer- I'm not attacking you. You must be a lucky parent with an enlightened care provider for your kid (I'm assuming you are the parent of a CI kid). AGBell is an example of a very influential organization that actively promotes Auditory Verbal methods above all others. For a kid with a CI, learning to hear and understand sounds of the CI is important but the fact remains that the whole basis of the "therapy" relies on the child's least effective sense. I think it would be great if all kids were taught sign language. There are programs with "reverse mainstream" where the majority of kids are deaf and the minority are hearing, everybody benefits from this type of arrangement. The hearing kids have good peer models for sign language and the deaf kids have good peer models for spoken language. Most importantly, all the kids can communicate with each other.

Maybe the reason kids who learn sign language "are destined for deaf schools" is because at deaf schools they have a peer group with whom they can communicate whereas in mainstream, deaf kids are separated by a language barrier from their hearing classmates.

My elementary school was a mix between reverse mainstream and mainstream. The deaf kids were always in classes with other deaf kids and the hearing kids who knew ASL. At the time I was a HOH kid who could sign but nobody picked up on my hearing loss because I was always in classes with interpreters. [Ironically the speech therapist couldn't understand why I had articulation problems...it turns out that the hearing screening tests we had every year used 65 to 70 dB sounds and being a sneaky little smart kid, I always memorized which hands the kids before me raised (the test was to raise the hand on the side in which you hear the sound) and the order they raised their hands.]

Then I transferred to a very intense high school where my largest class had 12 people. I could understand enough to get by but suffered socially.

It wasn't until college that I got hearing aids, which is apparently the norm in my family's hearing loss. We are little smart asses who unknowingly trick people into thinking we can hear until we are ~16 when we suddenly become deaf.

Damn smartass kids. I seem to be the only one in my generation to be lucky enough to get the gene but the family tree of deaf, belligerent Irish people goes way back.

rockdrummer

I understand that in some circumstances under certian conditions that a parent may be told not to use sign. Example; if the parent has elected to go with a CI or the oral route. What bothers me is how some people on this board choose their words. They way they make it sound is that ALL hearing parents are told not to use sign. What I am saying is that is NOT true and it paints an innacurate picture.

Peace!

shel90

Ok.

However, in my experience it happens too often.

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"A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." -George Santayana

rockdrummer

I am not disputing the frequency and perhaps it does happen too often. I just have not seen it in my experience. My point about misinformation is only that it doesn't happen all of the time as some have said or implied.

shel90

If it didnt happen as much, then there wont be a need to draw the cartoon. Just saying.

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inmate23

Some deaf (note little d) oral parents of DEAF teens hate the fact the teen uses sign and cued speech and is in the deaf community.

She cant afford hearing and the state payed for mine is the biggest problem.

deafdyke

Rockdrummer...............you're right. Some parents are encouraged to pursue ASL/TC. That's different from the old days when the entire focus was on speech speech and more speech.
However far too many parents are encouraged to pursue speech without Sign.
You know.....I wonder if a lot of the "oral sucesses" are more due to the fact that there seem to be a lot of parents who are helicopter parents. You know the kind who are so involved with their kids that every single mintute MUST be hyperprogrammed and enriched? I wonder if you took away the very high achievers, if most of the other oral kids would be the same kids who have always done mediorcly in the mainstream. (like they aren't acheiving to the best of their abilty, and they're just treading water in the mainstream)

TinyAttentionSp

Stupid question- can't you "talk" ASL and English to a baby, deaf or no? So that they learn both? I mean, I was never formally taught anything, but one of my babysitters was Spanish and until I hit 2nd grade, I spoke such thick Spanglish that I needed to take ESL. Of course now, I don't speak a word of spanish, but if I had hung out with more spanish people, i'd prolly still know it. And I can't assume that I'm any smarter or any less able to learn a language than if I wasn't with her. So why can't deaf children learn to sign and speak?

shel90

Despite intense speech therapy, some deaf children are unable to develop speech skills.

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TinyAttentionSp

Oh well, no I figured, but then they would just sign then, right? So they could try to learn both, if they can't develop speech, they just sign. Instead of going only for sign or only for speech, try both out and see what the child can handle in the long run?