University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, October 13, 1987
5
Tuesday Forum
Lisa Jones/KANSAN
Students in Alice-Ann Darrow's American Sign Language class review vocabulary. Above, Julia Brandeberry, a Great Bend graduate student, signs the word "run." At left, other students learn the word "all."
Signs unite deaf with hearing
By ALICE-ANN DARROW
It has often been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. The American Sign Language translation of the English word "unite" explifies this saying. American Sign Language, or ASL, is a method of creating images that communicate meaning rather than words.
The sign for "unite" also exemplifies what is now occurring in our society, the uniting of persons with and without a hearing disability. Hereafter I will use the term "deaf" because it is the term preferred by most individuals it describes. For many years, parents and educators believed this unity would come about only if deaf children learned spoken English. However, the irony is that this unity is now occurring as a result of the hearing population's acceptance of the language of approximately 500,000 deaf Americans.
The benefits of speech and lip reading skills for deaf individuals cannot be denied, but the fact is that most deaf children cannot acquire functional use of these skills. For many years these "oral failures" were inadvertently made to feel ashamed. A deaf adult reminisces: "glasses were given to those who failed to learn to speak." The deaf person. Some of us have since forgotten how to laugh the way we had been taught. And there are two or three from our group who have chosen to laugh silently for the
rest of our lives."
rest of our lives.
For many of these children, speech took precedence over language, which could have easily and rapidly been acquired through the use of signs. This misguided emphasis prompted the refrain, "What good is speech if a child has nothing to say?" Those individuals who continue to lament the use of signs, or specifically ASL in the education of deaf children, almost without exception, do not know the language.
Over the past 25 years, several English sign systems have developed in an attempt to teach English more efficiently to deaf children. However, a number of recent studies have shown that teaching English as a second language, much like the way we instruct foreign students, provides deaf children with greater academic success and without unwittingly teaching that American Sign Language, the core of the deaf culture, is "wrong" or "imaginative." The acceptance and use of ASL by educators has given many deaf children, particularly those with deaf parents, a more positive view of themselves, their families and their culture.
Sign language no longer carries a stigma. The hands of deaf children are no longer slipped, tied or placed in paper bags. This beautiful and expressive language is now being accepted by many academic institutions for what it is — a foreign language.
Researchers in linguistics have found that ASL is not a form of pantomime or a pathetic imitation
of English. It is a legitimate language that provided its users with the expressive capabilities of any other language. American Sign Language is now seen on television, on stage, in the movies, and in the community.
This increased awareness of ASL by the hearing population has given many deaf Americans a new sense of pride in their native language and additional job opportunities. It has been estimated that more hearing Americans are now learning sign language than deaf Americans; because of this, many deaf Americans have become social participants rather than observers, and have thus escaped isolation in a hearing society. This shared mode of communication has brought together many individuals who would have once only acknowledged each other with a polite but awkward nod of the head.
On the KU campus, more than a hundred students enroll in sign language classes every semester. Many other interested individuals acquire beginning sign skills through classes in the community, various churches and places of employment, as well as learning sign language will one day make KU and Lawrence totally accessible to members of the deaf community.
Alice-Ann Darrow is an assistant professor in music education and music therapy and a courtesy assistant professor in the department of speech, language and drama at the Kansas School for the Deal in Olathe.
By GARY LARSON
THE FAR SIDE
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ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS!!
The Student Senate Elections Committee would like to find seven hard-working people to fill vacant senate seats.
There are 3 Nunemaker,1 Architecture, 1 Education, 1 Engineering and 1 Resident-at-Large seats open.
Applications are available in the Student Senate Office, 105 Burge Union.
The Deadline for returning applications is Oct.19.