National Deaf History Month
- YES Program
- Apr 21, 2020
- 2 min read
Have you ever wanted to learn sign language because you met someone on the street that you couldn't communicate with. "About 2 to 3 out of every 1,000 children in the United States are born with a detectable level of hearing loss in one or both ears". Now is a great opportunity to learn sign language while you are home in quarantine.
Facts about sign language and the deaf community:
- More than 90 percent of deaf children are born to hearing parents.
- Men are almost twice as likely as women to have hearing loss among adults aged 20-69
-Non-Hispanic white adults are more likely than adults in other racial/ethnic groups to have hearing loss; non-Hispanic black adults have the lowest prevalence of hearing loss among adults aged 20-69.
-One in eight people in the United States (13 percent, or 30 million) aged 12 years or older has hearing loss in both ears, based on standard hearing examinations.
- As of December 2012, approximately 324,200 cochlear implants have been implanted worldwide. In the United States, roughly 58,000 devices have been implanted in adults and 38,000 in children.
-– Sign Language is not universal (even British and American Sign Language differ)
– French Sign Language and American Sign Language are the most alike (see below, under A Brief History)
– The deaf don’t clap after a performance or a show; instead they wiggle their hands in the air
– Deafness is not seen as a handicap, but rather as an asset that brings its members together forming a whole community and a culture all to itself (some deaf people actually refuse implants or hearing aids for this reason)
– Sign Language is not only about signs; it also includes facial expressions, body language, hand positions, hand movements, gestures, and some sounds
– You would be amazed to find out that deaf students in a classroom are noisier than hearing students
– Instead of the conventional phone, deaf people use a tele-typewriter (TTY) on which they type a message to the receiver. The TTY signals an incoming call with a flashing light. In the same way, vibrating alarm clocks are used rather than sound alarm clocks by the deaf.
– There is a difference between ASL and SEE (Signed English): SEE has taken much from ASL, but often it modifies ASL hand shapes to incorporate the hand shape used for the first letter of the English word that the SEE sign represents. Thus, SEE can be thought of as a code for visually representing spoken English.
Here is an ASL video to learn the alphabet. If you know the alphabet you can finger spell anything.
Learn colors:
Comments