The methods used were of three types: restrain the hands such as sitting on them, restrain the eyes, such as standing facing into a corner, and deprivation of a favorite activity, such as looking at books or movies.

Notice that all of these involve sensory deprivation which hits Deaf children harder than Hearing children. It also invokes painful emotional reactions in the children that may make them reluctant to participate in education or social activities.

Children restrained in this manner often act out, such as fidgeting, tapping, swinging arms or legs, grimacing and other repetitive motions often seen in children with sensory deprivations or autism. This greatly annoys teachers who think the children are being bad on purpose and again punishes them. Signs may be made to other children to let off steam and woe be to the ones that are caught at it again.

All Deaf people remember these annoyed teachers and their memorable blowups in the classroom. Perhaps describing these teachers would give enlightenment to why so many Deaf are angry at audists today.

I was born deaf. I learned to read, write, and speak first before I learned ASL. Before I learned ASL, I already learned hand gestures invented by children before I entered, of Davison School of Speech Correction in the mid 1950s. Davison’s children’s hand gestures are not listed in any known sign language category.

It was created because Deaf children of Davison School were desperate enough to do anything to get full informations they do not recieve from Hearing Authorities and from Hearing Staff from houseparents to teachers.

Information. It’s all about information. Deaf Children have a desire to “know”. They know they are not told everything so they willingly broke the rule and signed, risking punishments, for the freedom of information.

Writing “correctly” according to Hearing Society’s requirement fails to understand and respect Deaf People’s Right to freedom of information in any way they can achieve it.

There are Deaf People who cannot afford exclusive oralism schools. They are looked down by exclusive oralism schools. This created years of conflicts between Deaf People who cannot talk and Hearing People/Deaf People who can talk, avoiding ASL signing Deaf People who cannot talk. This is politics.

I think that examples of what we went through and evidence that those who spoke still speak, even with ASL, will speak volumes.

I like the idea of “experience database.” I know there’s going to be LOTS of stories and I myself, will not be surprised to see something that will blow our minds away. I have a few myself, mostly what I’ve witnessed the teachers do to my older siblings.