[bksvol-discuss] Re: OT Sign Language
- From: "siss52" <siss52@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 23:50:08 -0500
Bless your heart, Monica. I am sure the people enjoyed getting to know you
as much as they could under the circumstances. SMILE Also, thanks for
explaining more about ASL.
Sue S.
----- Original Message -----
From: Monica Willyard
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 8:31 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: OT Sign Language
Sue and Laura, I took a class in sign language about 15 years ago.
There is even a Braille book to teach blind people how to sign correctly. I
was in a training center with both deaf and blind adult students, and I
wanted to bridge the gap between our cultures. From what I understand, ASL
sign language is like reading grade 2 or even grade 3 Braille. ASL uses
letters, gestures, and symbols to represent entire words or phrases. The
deaf people I worked with gave me a sign for my name. It's the letter m
that drops from my chin to where my heart is. They said it was a symbol
that shows that I try to talk with them and kept my heart open to them.
ASL has a looser flow of hand movements. It also does not use
standard English grammar as the English sign Language does. For example, in
ESL you would say "John is going to the store to buy a book." In ASL, John
has a symbol or gesture that his friends have given him, sort of like a
nickname. They would make the sign for John, and the grammar would be
something like, "John goes store book." I think ASL is faster to do, and
that is a major advantage. I would guess that its disadvantage is that its
grammar structure leaves some room for misunderstanding about the tense of
verbs.
Until I met the people at the training center, I had no idea of how being
deaf can isolate people, making basic communication difficult. I begged the
training center's director to let us put a computer with Jaws in the lounge
so we could at least type back and forth to get to know each other. He
refused, and it is still one of my deepest regrets that I could not get to
know my neighbors beyond the surface. I know for sure that two of them were
wonderful people and that we could have had a deep, rich friendship if we'd
been able to really communicate.
"Don't let yesterday use up too much of today!" Will Rogers
Monica Willyard, rhyami@xxxxxxxxx
Add rhyami to your Skype if you'd like to chat.
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