No ASL Left Behind (NALB)!

Check out deafprogressivism.blogspot.com for more information. No American Sign Language left behind! Why? ASL is mostly misunderstood for hindering English development including speech. Actually ASL is not only a natural language but an instructional tool to enable English development. Ages 0-2 are considered a critical period of language acquisition. Too oftenly, parents of deaf children don't get direct contact from a deaf professionalist and the community right away causing their deaf children language delay. Signed English and Manually Coded English are "artificial languages" as they are not real languages to begin with. Research shows that it does not help written English skills.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• ASL
• deaf
• language
• education

[avbria]

I don't think hearing people understand that deaf is a social/linguistic culture rather than a disability. People who don't understand are just simply ignorant and that is why it is necessary to educate people and using youtube is one way. Hope you learned something!

[avbria]

Check out my website for more information..subtitling is not possible for me to do at this moment, sorry.

[avbria]

Yes, there is a way to bridge ASL to English. We have more bilingual programs such as CAEBER (originally from New Mexico and now in Gallaudet) and Fairview programs giving tools on connecting how these both languages work. Also read read and read!

[Lydiaabbey]

I just start to learn ASL recently, am hard of hearing. I can sign some simple words now. I joined a great deaf daing site, --------deafmatching dot c om--------, and met some good deaf/HOH friends over there. They help me to learn ASL.

[lisababy85]

so do I, I need to learn better ASL myself. My sister is also Deaf and we use SEE and it makes me frustrated because we use SEE and a little ASL and I want to learn ASL bc I want to be a psychologist for the Deaf but not many people in my Deaf community use it so it's hard for me to learn and practice=(

[NemenEmily]

@deafmel

I believe it was the word "refer"

[HappytoSign]

This is interesting...

My sister is deaf and she has hearing twins.. they learned Sign Language first .. then they learn to talk fast because they had early languge. But,, I beleive to start the deaf child learning ASL is so important.. I agree.

[HappytoSign]

oh I know.. I hate when people do that.. I love to be around people who are so positive. For me, my deaf friends are cool but mostly I hear stories of interpreters are being so mean. Too much compitition.. it sucks. Just do your best and stay positive, forget the negative people ok .... smile :)

[drooooopy]

One thing I wish some people would ease up on just a little is 'correcting the grammar' and 'you signed the wrong word' when somebody is struggling to communicate via sign,

especially if other issues impede that person's signing ability,

especially when what was said/intended was understood.

Its like stopping a stutterer and making them restart at each speech error, or stopping an AAC user at every typo.

When correcting like this is done to excess, for me this really impedes communication.

[deafmel]

finger spelling or signing with R on palm? if its R on palm, its research " i think"

[truevoiceofsanity]

My friend told me she learned language at 6; that is late age.

Clearly what you say is true. :D.

[Onneb11]

Even if all hearing people learn speech and language in school, yet not all have skills in both of them. It is about how to teach students in right way. Most teachers forget that speech is equal to language. It is not! Speech is just one of several ways how to tell people your opinions, feelings, et cetera. Sign language is one of them. Btw, what is the point of practicing speech if you don't know language at all. (part 4)

[Onneb11]

Most hearing people -- audiologist and people working in hearing aid and CI companies - benefit from deaf students. If sign language would be the first priority, they would not have make high profits. How to tell parents of deaf children that sign language is not important is to tell them that being able to hear is a huge benefit for future which is not always true. What is better: Being able to read and write and not being able to speak OR vice versa. I rather pick the former one. (part 3)