Hearing Impairments: Did you know?

Deaf Culture/Community

What is it?

It is a community specifically for the deaf who use sign language.

 Why does it exist?

·       To relax and enjoy life with others who can talk to them through sign language. They take leadership, have sports, and have community events.

·       The culture consists of language, values, traditions, norms and identity. 

Language: Every deaf culture has their own visual language, grammar and forms, and social rules.

Values: Includes the importance of communication through expressions and comprehension. The deaf schools are an important part of teaching values as the schools provide a social aspect that is needed. 

Traditions: They will teach their young the traditions so that it can be passed down through generations. It also sets traditions on appropriate behaviours, such as how to get someone's attention and appropriate eye contact. 

Identity: Being proud of one’s deaf culture,

Other Interesting Facts:

• There are no communication barriers in the community, because no one is dependent on an interpreter. 
• It provides excellent social skills to all individuals. Children play together and play sports. 
• Deaf students who are in mainstream classrooms might miss out on the feeling of belonging. They are often singled out in mainstream classrooms, and have little or no friends. They may find it hard to communicate with others and the teacher. 
• Deaf children who were put in mainstream classrooms found it harder to belong in the deaf community.
• Residential deaf schools are the root of the deaf community. 

Questions to think about

1) Should deaf students be in their own community, or should they be mainstreamed? 

In our opinion, based on the facts above, deaf children should most definitely be in their own community. They will develop better socially, cognitively, and emotionally. If I went into the deaf community, I would feel inadequate, because I do not know sign language. Would a deaf child not have feelings of inadequacy if they are put into mainstream classrooms? They will be singled out, even though it would most likely be unintended. 

2) Should sign language be taught in schools? 

In my opinion, yes, teachers should use sign language in the classroom. It is beneficial to the whole classroom. Not only should it be taught in classrooms, it should also be taught in daycare's, because children tend to learn their own language, and other languages, by the age of three. There are babies that learn sign language, and if they continue to learn, they can also help advocate the need for sign language in the classroom.

A lot of times, deaf children are born to parents who have hearing. If sign language was taught in schools, these parents would already know the essentials of teaching their own children sign language.Schools can benefit from having ASL taught to both the deaf and hearing students, because this will provide communication within the school. If schools taught ASL, it would provide more social interaction between the deaf and hearing students.

High school would be a beneficial place to provide extra opportunity to learn sign language as well. Depending where you live, you have to learn another language. Is ASL not a type of language in itself?

 

References

http://www.deaflinx.com/resources/asl-classes-deaf-non-deaf.html 

http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/70505

http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/the-benefits-of-american-sign-language.htm

http://lifeprint.com/asl101/topics/benefits_of_learning_how_to_sign.htm 

http://www.irishdeafkids.ie/2011/lipreading-for-children/ 

http://www.ssc.education.ed.ac.uk/courses/deaf/ddec05f.htmlhttp://www.tecear.com/About_FM_Assistive_Listening_Systems.htm