There have been countless ways in which doctors and teachers have tried to improve the lives of children with mental disabilities. A number of methods and lessons have been created to hopefully help these children. Though not all have been successful, there were some that stood out from the rest. One, specifically, was the teaching of British Sign Language. Teaching British Sign Language to mentally disabled children helped not only their ability to communicate but also improves their literacy skills and mental processing skills.
Teachers and doctors enjoyed using and teaching British Sign Language to people with mental disabilities even if it wasn’t proven that it helped. (Francis and Williams, 1). After studies that taught British Sign Language to children with mental disabilities, the results demonstrated that it helped create better speech (Francis and Williams, 1). Not only that, but the children were able to detect meaning in the signs (Vallotton 16). All the results from the studies give a great example as to why British Sign Language should be taught to children with mental disabilities. They show how helpful it can be.
Signs such as water helped children spell and sound out the word (Vallotton 17). Teaching British Sign Language allowed the children to feel more comfortable and calm. Since they felt this way, it made them want to learn and understand. The children were seen to be motivated and the extent of their disabilities did not affect the learning process (Francis and Williams, 31). The children were able to have better learning experiences.
The early child educators who have used signs to teach children have received greater responses from the children. When the children signed the teachers were capable of cr...
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... Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006. Print.
Francis, Valerie and Christopher Williams. “The Effects of Teaching British Sign Language to
Mentally Handicapped, Non-Communicating Children.” Journal of Educational Psychology
(2009): 18-28. Print.
Jones, Michael. “Sign Posting” Nursery World 29 July. 2010: 20-21. Print.
Kanade, Shrinivas. “Sign Language for Kids” Language 3 December. 2011: 1-16. Print.
Marschark, Marc, Brenda Schick, and Patricia Elizabeth Spencer. Advances in the Sign
Language Development of Deaf Children. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Print.
Sutton-Spence Rachel and Bencie Woll. The Linguistics of British Sign Language: An
Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Print.
Vallotton, Claire. "Signing with Babies and Children.” Language & Communication (2006): 1-
18. Print
Porter, A. (1999). Sign-language interpretation in psychotherapy with deaf patients. American Journal of Psychotherapy. 53, 2. Health Module. Pg. 163.
All the other family members of the young boy were not deaf. The grandparents of the underlying boy were normal and they think that the boy will be normal without any problem. The grandparents of the Mark were against the sign language because they think if Mark understands the signing language he will become dependent. However, the parents of the Mark want to teach him the signing language because according to their point of view, the signing language will help the Mark in understanding the language. In the school, he used the signing language with his friends and teachers in order to communicate with all of them. After the learning of the signing language, Mark was able to understand all the signs and know everything which the other communicates. Mark loved his school and his friends and was very happy in his school. The grandparents of Mark saw him very happy after the learning of the signing class because by taking the signing class, Mark was able to understand the language of the others. When the grandparents of Mark saw him happy due to the learning of the signing class so both of them also took an admission in the signing class in order to understand the language of the other individuals (Oliva et.al,
In this article, “The Deaf Body in Public Space,” Rachel Kolb explains how interacting with people who do not understand sign language could be difficult. With her hearing disability she struggled to communicate with her peers. Kolb further explains the different situations she has encountered with people and comments that are made with first intercommunications. Going further she also mentions how she struggles with two languages and two modes of communication.
...at sign language was a last resort if the child did not pick up lip reading and oral communication. Thomas now met someone who signed and spoke and realized that signing is a language in its own and its importance to people who could not hear the oral language. This began their quest to learn sign language and use it with Lynn despite the school and public opinion.
The “deaf and dumb” stigma as well as the delayed language and cognitive development of some Deaf children concerns this topic. “Ninety percent of deaf children have hearing parents, and usually there’s a significant communication gap” (Drolsbaugh 48). Therefore, it is not that being born deaf or hard of hearing that makes children unintelligent. It is the lack of access to language in the critical early years, as hearing parents often do not know sign language, that causes later issues in education. This can be seen from the fact that the brain’s plasticity, or its ability to acquire new information and establish neural pathways, is the greatest at birth and wanes throughout development. Therefore, if a child does not have sufficient access to language before five, significant language, and thus cognitive impairment, can result (100). Additionally, children learn about the world around them and develop critical thinking skills through asking questions. However, hearing parents often “wave off” such questions as unimportant due to difficulty explaining them (48). Therefore, early exposure to an accessible language such as ASL is crucial in developing language and cognitive abilities. When hearing families are fully aware and understanding of this, it can greatly facilitate improvements in education for Deaf
In our discussion of cochlear implants that, in my mind, seemed at times distastefully eugenicist, I found myself grappling with some difficult questions: How different would my experience of the world be if I communicated via American Sign Language instead of English? Does the existence of sign language benefit the world in some meaningful way? Just what, if anything, would be lost if the world lost sign language?
A psychologist is shouting for signing to become offered as a ‘foreign language’ subject for both hearing and the deaf in primary or mainstream secondary schools for them 2 last GCSE years.
I suggest there be larger sample sizes and that all participants be randomly assigned to experimental groups. Not only would this help show empirical support, but results could then be generalized beyond the experiments. Longitudinal data should also be recorded in order to measure the long term effects of teaching children sign language or symbolic gestures, especially as it relates to development of language. If there more longitudinal data becomes available to analyze, then parents and educators could be better informed when making the decision use baby sign language or not. Also, there needs to be a more diverse sample of participants. Many studies only included with middle class parents. Since there is no evidence of harm to children with the use o baby sign language, I believe it is a useful communication tool.
It “is an important part of the social, cultural, and educational context of the hearing-impaired child’s development” (Stahlman, 349). If a person cannot communicate effectly then they may not thrive and develop while having a hearing or speech impairment. In both American Sign Language and Pidgin Signed English, a person who is hearing-impaired must learn to communicate with the world using only his hands and facial expressions. American Sign Language and Pidgin Signed English is a way for the unable to communicate. Both ASL and PSE can be taught in many different ways however, ASL is normally taught in school while PSE is normally self-taught but either way they are both a unique method of communication and can be used all over the world and can be translated and spoken just like any other language can
American Sign Language is a naturally acquired language; my sister, at five, has perfect ASL grammar and sentence structure, something I will never really have. Grammar in ASL is about your face: eyebrows are lifted for yes or no questions, scrunched together for wh- questions. When signing the word "big", say "Cha" with your voice. It is important to look the signer in the face; use peripheral vision to absorb the hand and arm movements. This, of course is not as easy as it sounds - deaf people have extraordi...
The documentary “For a Deaf Son,” delineates a young boy, Thomas Tranchin, who was born deaf into a hearing family, and the battle his parents endured to decide to teach Thomas in sign language communication, strictly communicate in English, or both. The documentary is educational for the hearing world to shape their own particular opinions on what type of technique would be better for their child in the event that they were to ever be in a comparative circumstance. As Dr. Carlos Erting expressed in the film, 93% of hearing impaired children have hearing parents; therefore, this documentary gives a glimpse at both perspectives of nonverbal communication and oral communication. However, as I viewed the short film, the clashing feelings of Thomas’
People often think that a disability means that the person is cognitively incapable in addition to the obvious, or not so obvious, truth. I firmly believe that people should be labeled by their abilities rather than their disabilities. This is why I love the idea that the Deaf community defines itself as culturally capital-D Deaf rather than lower-case-d deaf, which is the condition of being unable to hear. When Drolsbaugh received strong reactions from using the word Deaf, it was because those individuals were unsure of what to do because of his deafness. I wonder what the world, or at least America, would be like if everyone understood this concept; more so, I wonder what it would be like if sign language was commonly taught in elementary schools in the hearing
“Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same things, but learning another way to think about things” (American). For centuries, people from all walks of life have been using their hands to communicate with one another, and for centuries people from all walks of life have been learning. Today I am following in their footsteps with a passion from God for the deaf language, culture, and souls. For almost a decade, an intense ardor for American Sign Language and a desire to reach its native users for Christ seeded itself in my soul, wove its roots deeper and deeper, and blossomed into one of the greatest loves of my life. American Sign Language is a unique language with a rich history that not only provides a service to people in the deaf culture, but also to hearing people who seek to attain fluency.
According to Hutchison (2007), the pivotal moment in the early history of deaf education was the International Congress of the Education of the Deaf, which met in Milan in 1880. Prior to that time, sign language was widely used as the language of instruction in schools for the deaf around the world. At the Milan conference, leading educators passed several resolutions that effectively banned sign language from classrooms, stating the “incontestable superiority of speech over signs in restoring the deaf-mute to society, which gives him a fuller knowledge of language” (Hutchison, 2007, p. 481) and declaring that “the oral method should be preferred to that of signs in the education and instruction of deaf-mutes” (Hutchison, 2007, p. 481). Not only did the resolutions disallow the use of the na...
prefers to utilize the American Sign Language (ASL) for communication. According to Deaf & hard of hearing – Deaf culture fact sheet, (2015) “ASL has been passed on from one generation to the next in schools” and that “when ASL was not allowed in classrooms Deaf staff and peers secretly used this language to communicate” therefore demonstrating its significance in the Deaf culture. As already stated vision is a strong element in communication within the Deaf culture and therefore norms such as eye contact are very important. Body language and facials expressions can be easily read by a deaf individual thereby providing additional information while communicating. In order to get the attention of the other person a deaf individual utilizes hand waving something which Deaf & hard of hearing – Deaf Culture fact sheet, (2015) states that “ it is most