On a cold winter evening, the sound of a siren comes blaring from a distance that is only a couple of feet away. Sixteen year-old Daniel is bent over working on fixing something under the hood of his car. All of a sudden, he feels a rough grab on his side. He looks up confused, but is met by a raging police office trying to communicate something while yelling. When the police officer doesn’t get the reaction he expects, he then begins to forcefully handcuff Daniel. Unbeknownst to the police office, Daniel couldn’t respond because he couldn’t hear the police officer because he was Deaf. When Daniel tried to make some hand gestures to signify to the police officer that he was Deaf, his gestures were mistaken as resisting arrest. He was then arrested and spent 12 hours in jail until it was finally realized that the police officer arrested the wrong person. This could have been avoided if the police officer understood Sign Language. But, the police officer isn’t the only person who doesn’t understand Sign Language. A lot of people in the United States claim that they know what Sign Language is, but very few of them actually know how to use it effectively.
Most Americans confuse Sign Language as a set of hand gestures that serve to express English words with signs but fail to realize that Sign Language is much more than just hand gestures. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Sign Language is “a formal language employing a system of hand gestures for communication (as by the Deaf)”. In the United States, the primary form of Sign Language is the American Sign Language. American Sign Language is a linguistically complex visual language. It consists of making hand gestures combined with facial expressions and body postures. It is in...
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...Special Education: A Reference for the Education of the Handicapped and other Exceptional Children and Adults (2006).
Cripps J, Smalls A. "To Mainstream or Not to Mainstream Your Deaf Child." Deaf Culture Centre (n.d.).
Denham, Lobeck. Integrating Linguistic Knowledge into K–12 Teaching. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2005.
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Johnson, Liddel, Erting. "Unlocking the Curriculum: Principles for Acheiving Access in Deaf Education." Department of Linguistics and Interpreting and the Gallaudet Research Institute (1989): 1.
Lieberman, Lauren J, et al. "Infusing Sign Language and Spanish into Physical Education." Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance (2010): 45-49.
National Institute of Health. American Sign Language. Maryland: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, 2011-2012.
In the following chapters, there is an extensive amount of knowledge to learn about how Deaf culture is involved in our modern world. The pages assigned give us an outlook of how Deaf people are treated in our daily life, and how we should learn from it. Its gives a clear line between what are myths and what are facts, to those who are curious about the Deaf community or have specific questions. This book has definitely taught me new things that I could put to good use in the near future. In specific chapters, my mind really opened up to new ideas and made me think hard about questions, like “why don’t some Deaf people trust hearing people,” or “do we need another ‘Deaf president now’ revolution?” I realized many new things in the course of reading this book, and have recommended this to my family.
Spradley, T. S., & Spradley, J. P. (1978). Deaf Like Me. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University.
Jankowski, Katherine A. (1997). Deaf Empowerment: Emergence, Strugge, and Rhetoric. Gallaudet University Press, Washington DC.
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.
Throughout the course of the semester, I have gained a new understanding and respect of Deaf culture and the many aspects it encompasses. The information supplied in class through discussion, movies, and guest lecturers since the previous reflection have aided in the enhancement of my knowledge of Deaf culture and nicely wrapped up all of the information provided throughout the semester.
Sign language is a natural human language, they have their own vocabularies and sentence structures. Sign language comes into practice wherever Deaf societies come into existence. Sign language is not identical worldwide; every country has its own language and accents; however, these are not the verbal or transcribed languages used by hearing individuals around them.
Deaf Again autobiography is a man’s recounting of his life growing up in deaf culture, but virtually living in the hearing world. Mark Drolsbaugh was born to deaf parents, but grew up partially hearing. When he was diagnosed with hearing loss, his grandparents responded by not allowing Mark to learn ASL. Doctors and speech therapists concluded that Mark should not be immersed in deaf culture, instead he should hang on to his hearing as much as he can. He was given hearing aids and translators did not sign to him, but just repeated everything clearer. His parents were actually instructed to not used ASL around Mark because that would promote deaf culture. He became very reliant on lip reading and had no significant connection to the deaf community, even though his parents were both deaf! When he wasn’t familiar with the lip patterns of an individual, he found it very hard to understand them. Because of this, he was unable to keep up in school and had to rely on teaching himself all of his classwork. Eventually, he was accepted into Germantown Friends School, which was very rigorous, but people
Singleton, Jenny and Matthew Tittle. “Deaf Parents and Their Hearing Children.” Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. 5.3 (2000): 221-234. PsycINFO. EBSCO. Web. 9 Dec. 2013.
Mark Drolsbaugh, the author of Deaf Again, was born to deaf parents at a time when the deaf population didn’t have and weren’t given the same availability to communication assistance as they have today. He was born hearing and seemed to have perfect hearing up until the first grade when he started having trouble understanding what was being said but was too young to understand what was happening. (Drolsbaugh 8).
...old, Johnson. (2004). U.S. Deaf Education Teacher Preparation Programs: A Look at the Present and a Vision for the Future. American Annals of Deaf, 149, 75-91.
Spradley, T. S., & Spradley, J. P. (1978). Deaf Like Me. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University.
From a deafness-as-defect mindset, many well-meaning hearing doctors, audiologists, and teachers work passionately to make deaf children speak; to make these children "un-deaf." They try hearing aids, lip-reading, speech coaches, and surgical implants. In the meantime, many deaf children grow out of the crucial language acquisition phase. They become disabled by people who are anxious to make them "normal." Their lack of language, not of hearing, becomes their most severe handicap. While I support any method that works to give a child a richer life, I think a system which focuses on abilities rather than deficiencies is far more valuable. Deaf people have taught me that a lack of hearing need not be disabling. In fact, it shouldn?t be considered a lack at all. As a h...
In the book Seeing Voices, the author describes the world of the deaf, which he explores with extreme passion. The book begins with the history of deaf people in the United States of America, the horrible ways in which they had been seen and treated, and their continuing struggle to gain hospitality in the hearing world. Seeing Voices also examines the visual language of the deaf, sign language, which is as expressive and as rich as any spoken language. This book covers a variety of topics in deaf studies, which includes sign language, the neurology of deafness, the treatment of Deaf American citizens in history, and the linguistic and social challenges that the deaf community face. In this book, Oliver Sacks does not view the deaf as people having a condition that can be treated, instead he sees the deaf more like a racial group. This book is divided into three parts. In the first part, Oliver Sacks states a strong case for sign language, saying it is in fact a complete language and that it is as comprehensive as English, French, Chinese, and any other spoken language. He also describes the unhappy story of oralism (this is the education of deaf students through oral language by using lip reading, speech, and mimicking the mouth shapes and breathing patterns of speech)) in deaf children’s education. In addition, the first part is about the history of deaf people as well as information about deafness. It also includes the author’s own introduction to the world of the deaf.
National Institute of Health. (2011). National Institute on Deafness and other communication disorders: Improving the lives of people who have communication disorders. National Institute on
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