I bet that critical thinking is impeded by the extra work it takes to focus on and understand what is seen on the lips and heard through the hearing aids/C.I. This takes away from the precious brain space and time to mull on the ideas being discussed. One is busy playing catching up. I think we agree that critical thinking is vital in the education of children. I have noticed that whenever I have a poor interpreter I am so busy straining to understand what is being said that I cannot sit back, relax, and ponder what is being said - in other words, use critical thinking. ASL would enable its users to do just that!
I think the idea of a research project on the various rates of data flow is excellent! I have noticed that I prefer a fast interpreter who uses mostly SEE than a slow newbie interpreter who uses ASL (I know that seems to almost contradict what you said with regards to SEE and ASL). I get bored and my mind wanders and suddenly I forget what the heck was said five words ago or what the idea being discussed was!
Unfortunately, the idea of their deaf child learning to speak and hear is much more alluring than the idea of learning a whole new language while raising a child. Such research as the one on the rate of data flow and its effect on learning can only help to convince the thinking parents to learn and use ASL in addition to whatever other methods they decide is appropriate.
Belle,
Yes, we do need research on this and will see if some organization or other sources to donate monies to start writing grants to have this research done soon.
SusanA,
Yes, I do have a voice-over on this Vlog but I rather re-do it more to a professional level similar to Amy Cohen Efron’s voice-over, The Greatest Irony Video.
John F. Egbert
I am currently second year in MSSE (Master Science of Secondary Education) at NITD. My content is ASL. I will love to do this research for my thesis project. I have been struggling to think of a topic to do research regarding to ASL.
I had an idea of including ASL structure such as grammar, space and how the verbs is signed. For example, EATING is a verb in signing, you will say EATING twice. As for Noun, EAT, you will sign once. in English class for deaf children. I mean, most of deaf school don’t have ASL class for deaf children to learn their own language. I thought how convience it will be if English class has some ASL structure for deaf children to compare English and ASL.
Yet, your idea of data flow is critical research to do. I don’t mind doing some research on that. We need to keep fighting to have ASL a MUST in deaf children life.
ASL = Data Flow rate is faster, short , more input (inform come in), understand in a general.
SEE = Date Flow rate is slowly, a full long sentence, (yawning!)
ORAL = Data Flow rate is fast/slow, missing input, hard to catch what it says. Frustrated lipreading.
(My husband was used to oral in his life, too till he went to Gally, he learned ASL, it hit him so hard, he realized about the communication methods between ASL & Oral. He learned more things thru ASL than Oral!)
I am in the same boat as yours! We HAVE to set up the ASL/BI Organization and do something about it. You have an excellent point about the Data Flow Rate Communication! How can we help you to set up?
My life as an Deaf Oralist - a very slow data flow rate! I learned nothing but lipreads –
It is without a doubt, by a large percentage, ASL is a deaf child’s best chances for a successful future/life. It doesn’t matter who advertises the best . . . oral, SEE, ASL, etc . . . usually it is the parent’s decision that affects their child’s outcome.
Look at it this way, some parents might be leaning towards ASL but they come to realize that they need to learn sign language as well, that alone is a big turn-off for them. Many are too damn lazy or not committed enough to learn. I taught sign language for many years and at the beginning of each semester, I would have quite a few parents of deaf children. I can read their body language and facial expressions that learning, memorizing simple signs and creating sentence isn’t easy as they thought it would be. Soon, the fathers drop out of the class and then the mothers. At the end of each semester, there may be a dedicated mother or two left. To me, oral is an “easy way out” for them.
Another reason is that the parents usually want to keep their children at home and doesn’t want to send them to residential state deaf schools because they usually say to me . . . . “that breaks my heart”. I tell them to think of their child’s future, not theirs.
Another factor is that state residential schools have a large percentage of deaf teachers/staff . . . don’t get me wrong, I think that’s great . . . but to parent’s eyes, they feel like they’re in foreign country. They may visit these schools and usually communication is poor between them and deaf teachers/houseparents (usually no full time on-site interpreter available . . . during my time anyway).
Many local deaf mainstreaming schools does not use or allow ASL as the “official” sign language. It is the school board who makes this decision and we need to get to them. It is hard enough to find or hire a teacher who is fluent in ASL for every mainstream school in the good ol’ USA!
So, if we could somehow encourage and steer the parent’s way of thinking towards ASL as the deaf child’s best opportunity, education-wise, that would be the key to the whole thing. For sure, it is a big, long up-hill battle!
I read every words, that you have made. You were right about some parents prefered their deaf child and/or children to learning for speech (oral.) Thats their priorities. I cannot say that to criticize them. I’m saying that for them to feel comfortable to teach their deaf children for the future.
Most of parents prefered to place their child and/or children in Deaf school, to teach ASL. Which was great for them to learn ASL as their first language. But, Most of parents, that I may disagree or agree for parents’ rights. Because most of children may feel the difference between deaf AND hearing cultures. Which not fair to child and/or children to see the differences with their eyes.
About SEE. That kind of interest, most of people believe in SEE helps. I know, the difference between two worlds( Believers and Non believers.) It’s not fair for everyone in this world. But, I cannot criticize in SEE. I think difficult situations to look into SEE, Its too complicated for all of us (ASL and ORAL)
John, I cannot say any further unless You have any questions to ask. Ask me anything. That I may help you to know about Date Flow Rate. I noticed as myself to learn in three issues, that you have said in Blog. Thats what hit me with all of my heart, that know in the past with three issues. I think you did wonderful job. I may have agreed with you.
It is absolute true… Would you be more than happy to assist the source about factual documents from your experiences. We can start the research with the methodolgy of perceptive levels from using Sign Language, SEE & ASL or using Oral & Aural Method. Thanks!!
I am currently KSU student… It is the critical issue for our education system but there is the conflicts by the disputes from other parities involving educators, parents and medical teams. Please allow me to contact you for more sources to share with the staffs and faculties.
When I was little boy and I was very frustrated with Oral methods without signs cuz of ban signing in 1960’s. I was confused with which right word is, example: two or too / six or sex / for or four, etc…. I think that ASL is VERY IMPORTANT to all deaf children to make them very clearly understand.
I agree with John Egbert about the need for research and documentation about data flow.
Some time ago, I spoke to a group of about 200 people of which about 20 were deaf. I asked the audience to please stand up if you were a hearing person. About 180 hearing people stood up. Then I asked, “How many of you speak exactly the way you write, please remain standing”, and all of them sat down. The deaf were shocked by this revelation.
Then I went on to explain that spoken English was different than written English. Spoken English uses auditory tone changes, inflection changes, pacing changes and even body language movements as people speak to change or emphasize the meaning of their sentences and their words.
ASL does not have a written counter part . So it is decided that the deaf need to learn and read written English. It is at least a commonly shared language to use with hearing people in our own society. When ASL is used, body postures and movements, facial expressions, pacing, spacing, and sizes of the signs also changes the meaning of the sentences and words.
Now if hearing people speak exactly the way they write, the will have great difficulty expressing exactly what they mean. Many hearing people have trouble in school with reading and writing English. Written English is hard to speak and hard to understand if there is no tone changes, inflection changes, body language usage, or pacing. This is the data flow that John Egbert alluded to, hearing people won’t speak the way they write because it slows down the data flow and it slows down and hinders the undertandability of what is being said. There is more thinking on the part of the communicator to convey a message or the receiver to decipher and understand what was said.
Hearing people do not like written English because it requires a more exacting way to express what they want to say. Written English often loses its meaning that can easily be said in spoken English.
When you really think about it, spoke English and written English are actually two different languages with their own context, syntax, and usage. Much like deaf use ASL and written English which are two different languages with their own context, syntax, and usage.
For deaf people, SEE is the written English parallel. When SEE is used, exact signs have to be used and sentence structures have to be used. When SEE is used, the data flow rate changes and slows down, understandability decreases. SEE is not a visual language. It is an attempt to put some auditory discipline in a visual language.
ASL has been built up over generations and generations of our deaf ancestors over the ages. It has been refined and tried, and it still is. ASL is a living language and it changes over time. Despite the fact that there is a general disagreement about SEE, some SEE signs have made it into the ASL signs (such as using B at the mouth for breakfast, L for at the mouth for lunch, and D at the mouth for dinner or S at the mouth for supper).
John Egbert talks about computer to computer communication or data flow. Within each computer there are buffers that control the rate by which data is sent to the other computer or the rate that data flow is received.
Human beings are much like that. We all have our own buffers to send and receive communication data flow. All of our buffers whether sending or receiving all have different rates and capacities by which you can understand something or transmit something. If you overwhelm your own sending buffer, your data flow to the other person doesn’t work very well. If you overwhelm your own receiving buffer, data flow in to your own head also doesn’t work all.
Data flow that John Egbert has alluded to is a very powerful concept that not only would impact deaf education but hearing education, business and international communications as well.
Yes it is true that I had raised oral from birth to 9 years old which was so hard. Example to read set and sit, six or sixteen or sixty, run or run are many, that are looking alike to read lip that hard. I was transfered to deaf school and was very happy to understand everything as I learned quickly. I wish I was in deaf school when I was six years old which would be best in a long life. I met few oral people who try to learn asl that was worse for them to understand between asl and gesture. I support ASL the best! Where will I find support you or where will I reach someone? Your email address is good one for me to reach and see what I can help????? Thank you and hope to hear from you real soon.
I think that your research project is an excellent idea!
I was raised as an oral student (no interpreters or notetaking and sign language use was forbidden at that time) until I was about 12. Then I was transferred to a deaf residential school, I learned ASL which was the other side of language to learn and it took me a long time to develop my fluency in it. It took me 7 years to achieve that!
Well, to me, when we compare oral with ASL, and it shows a pretty sharp contrast between them; but, as I looked back, I would rather to have SEE or something like that, being in use as a moderate (between the “extremes” ORAL and ASL) in schools/colleges for education so to increase the deaf students’ vocabulary better. At first, ASL helped me to catch up with English language and vocabulary, yes, but only to some degree. Once I was in college, ASL seems no longer to meet higher needs of college students because there was a lot of terms to learn where ASL is lagging behind and because many of us now have better vocabulary than ASL vocabulary so ASL has its own limited uses. Sometimes I wish for ASL teachers or even deaf people to create more signs for bigger words of our beautiful English language.
I believe ASL is a beautiful language for deaf people as well as hearing people to use for communication; but, from my experience, it seems to serve them better for social purposes rather than for educational needs of deaf students. So from that, I cannot bring myself to agree with you 100% that “pure” ASL is the way to go in schools or even in colleges. Oral is considered as an extreme, right for many of us; but I consider that ASL is another extreme also, so I would not even encourage that to happen in schools or colleges!
When you start researching on data flow rate, make sure to indicate types of hearing loss that deaf people have because I suspect for a long time that degrees of hearing losses may affect their data flow rate as well while they receive date through those types of methods. Types or degrees of hearing losses may be considered as variables in your research.
I look forward to hearing what you have learned when your research is done. Best wishes and good luck!
John, you have excellent point about the data flow. I strongly agreed with you. I wanted to add to ASL as you said it has more than 180 data per minute. ASL is like a 3-D language. Teaching with fluent ASL would work best. Researching and documenting is excellent idea. Teaching parents ASL, show the documented films how young children responded differently with ASL, oral method, etc. So they would see the children’s excitement and communicative with each other in ASL. And show how much Deaf adults enjoyed with ASL at clubs. So that would spark parents and keep learning ASL all the way evens thou it is hard to learn. They would keep in mind what they saw in the films.
If I were a parent of blind child, I would ask several blind folks to see which method would suit my blind chilid the best. So why cannot hearing parents be smart enough to ask Deafies to see which communication method would suit the best for their deaf child including the data flowing as you have clearly mentioned.
Now I’m commenting on the responder named LoveASL August 8th, 2007 8:20am
Hi LoveASL,
I want to correct of your statement, so your comment won’t mislead the numerous readers to think that way.
For general ASL grammar, sign once is verb, not noun. Sign twice is noun. Your example “Eating” is happened to be one of exception. No offense intended. Just want to correct it, smile. Appreciate knowing that you found the good topic for your thesis project.
Welcome to vlogland! (If you vlogged before, still welcome from my viewpoint
).
Your analysis using the data flow rate is brilliant! I like that analysis. Looking forward to more from you :).
I bet that critical thinking is impeded by the extra work it takes to focus on and understand what is seen on the lips and heard through the hearing aids/C.I. This takes away from the precious brain space and time to mull on the ideas being discussed. One is busy playing catching up. I think we agree that critical thinking is vital in the education of children. I have noticed that whenever I have a poor interpreter I am so busy straining to understand what is being said that I cannot sit back, relax, and ponder what is being said - in other words, use critical thinking. ASL would enable its users to do just that!
I think the idea of a research project on the various rates of data flow is excellent! I have noticed that I prefer a fast interpreter who uses mostly SEE than a slow newbie interpreter who uses ASL (I know that seems to almost contradict what you said with regards to SEE and ASL). I get bored and my mind wanders and suddenly I forget what the heck was said five words ago or what the idea being discussed was!
Unfortunately, the idea of their deaf child learning to speak and hear is much more alluring than the idea of learning a whole new language while raising a child. Such research as the one on the rate of data flow and its effect on learning can only help to convince the thinking parents to learn and use ASL in addition to whatever other methods they decide is appropriate.
do you have voice-over for this vlog? this is interesting info for parents.
Data input and output research, that’s something that is sorely missing in education for the deaf. Glad you brought it up.
There must be a way that we all can work together to obtain funding for this to occur.
Belle,
Yes, we do need research on this and will see if some organization or other sources to donate monies to start writing grants to have this research done soon.
SusanA,
Yes, I do have a voice-over on this Vlog but I rather re-do it more to a professional level similar to Amy Cohen Efron’s voice-over, The Greatest Irony Video.
John F. Egbert
Hi,
I am currently second year in MSSE (Master Science of Secondary Education) at NITD. My content is ASL. I will love to do this research for my thesis project. I have been struggling to think of a topic to do research regarding to ASL.
I had an idea of including ASL structure such as grammar, space and how the verbs is signed. For example, EATING is a verb in signing, you will say EATING twice. As for Noun, EAT, you will sign once. in English class for deaf children. I mean, most of deaf school don’t have ASL class for deaf children to learn their own language. I thought how convience it will be if English class has some ASL structure for deaf children to compare English and ASL.
Yet, your idea of data flow is critical research to do. I don’t mind doing some research on that. We need to keep fighting to have ASL a MUST in deaf children life.
LoveASL,
Sure, do some research on Data Flow Rate communication in Deaf Education regarding on different communication methods.
The more different sources of research studies we have, the better
John F. Egbert
ASL = Data Flow rate is faster, short , more input (inform come in), understand in a general.
SEE = Date Flow rate is slowly, a full long sentence, (yawning!)
ORAL = Data Flow rate is fast/slow, missing input, hard to catch what it says. Frustrated lipreading.
(My husband was used to oral in his life, too till he went to Gally, he learned ASL, it hit him so hard, he realized about the communication methods between ASL & Oral. He learned more things thru ASL than Oral!)
I am in the same boat as yours! We HAVE to set up the ASL/BI Organization and do something about it. You have an excellent point about the Data Flow Rate Communication! How can we help you to set up?
My life as an Deaf Oralist - a very slow data flow rate! I learned nothing but lipreads –
Hey pal . . . Good, informative vlog.
It is without a doubt, by a large percentage, ASL is a deaf child’s best chances for a successful future/life. It doesn’t matter who advertises the best . . . oral, SEE, ASL, etc . . . usually it is the parent’s decision that affects their child’s outcome.
Look at it this way, some parents might be leaning towards ASL but they come to realize that they need to learn sign language as well, that alone is a big turn-off for them. Many are too damn lazy or not committed enough to learn. I taught sign language for many years and at the beginning of each semester, I would have quite a few parents of deaf children. I can read their body language and facial expressions that learning, memorizing simple signs and creating sentence isn’t easy as they thought it would be. Soon, the fathers drop out of the class and then the mothers. At the end of each semester, there may be a dedicated mother or two left. To me, oral is an “easy way out” for them.
Another reason is that the parents usually want to keep their children at home and doesn’t want to send them to residential state deaf schools because they usually say to me . . . . “that breaks my heart”. I tell them to think of their child’s future, not theirs.
Another factor is that state residential schools have a large percentage of deaf teachers/staff . . . don’t get me wrong, I think that’s great . . . but to parent’s eyes, they feel like they’re in foreign country. They may visit these schools and usually communication is poor between them and deaf teachers/houseparents (usually no full time on-site interpreter available . . . during my time anyway).
Many local deaf mainstreaming schools does not use or allow ASL as the “official” sign language. It is the school board who makes this decision and we need to get to them. It is hard enough to find or hire a teacher who is fluent in ASL for every mainstream school in the good ol’ USA!
So, if we could somehow encourage and steer the parent’s way of thinking towards ASL as the deaf child’s best opportunity, education-wise, that would be the key to the whole thing. For sure, it is a big, long up-hill battle!
John . . . keep on plugging!
John,
I read every words, that you have made. You were right about some parents prefered their deaf child and/or children to learning for speech (oral.) Thats their priorities. I cannot say that to criticize them. I’m saying that for them to feel comfortable to teach their deaf children for the future.
Most of parents prefered to place their child and/or children in Deaf school, to teach ASL. Which was great for them to learn ASL as their first language. But, Most of parents, that I may disagree or agree for parents’ rights. Because most of children may feel the difference between deaf AND hearing cultures. Which not fair to child and/or children to see the differences with their eyes.
About SEE. That kind of interest, most of people believe in SEE helps. I know, the difference between two worlds( Believers and Non believers.) It’s not fair for everyone in this world. But, I cannot criticize in SEE. I think difficult situations to look into SEE, Its too complicated for all of us (ASL and ORAL)
John, I cannot say any further unless You have any questions to ask. Ask me anything. That I may help you to know about Date Flow Rate. I noticed as myself to learn in three issues, that you have said in Blog. Thats what hit me with all of my heart, that know in the past with three issues. I think you did wonderful job. I may have agreed with you.
Keep up good work, John
Hi John,
It is absolute true… Would you be more than happy to assist the source about factual documents from your experiences. We can start the research with the methodolgy of perceptive levels from using Sign Language, SEE & ASL or using Oral & Aural Method. Thanks!!
I am currently KSU student… It is the critical issue for our education system but there is the conflicts by the disputes from other parities involving educators, parents and medical teams. Please allow me to contact you for more sources to share with the staffs and faculties.
When I was little boy and I was very frustrated with Oral methods without signs cuz of ban signing in 1960’s. I was confused with which right word is, example: two or too / six or sex / for or four, etc…. I think that ASL is VERY IMPORTANT to all deaf children to make them very clearly understand.
I agree with John Egbert about the need for research and documentation about data flow.
Some time ago, I spoke to a group of about 200 people of which about 20 were deaf. I asked the audience to please stand up if you were a hearing person. About 180 hearing people stood up. Then I asked, “How many of you speak exactly the way you write, please remain standing”, and all of them sat down. The deaf were shocked by this revelation.
Then I went on to explain that spoken English was different than written English. Spoken English uses auditory tone changes, inflection changes, pacing changes and even body language movements as people speak to change or emphasize the meaning of their sentences and their words.
ASL does not have a written counter part . So it is decided that the deaf need to learn and read written English. It is at least a commonly shared language to use with hearing people in our own society. When ASL is used, body postures and movements, facial expressions, pacing, spacing, and sizes of the signs also changes the meaning of the sentences and words.
Now if hearing people speak exactly the way they write, the will have great difficulty expressing exactly what they mean. Many hearing people have trouble in school with reading and writing English. Written English is hard to speak and hard to understand if there is no tone changes, inflection changes, body language usage, or pacing. This is the data flow that John Egbert alluded to, hearing people won’t speak the way they write because it slows down the data flow and it slows down and hinders the undertandability of what is being said. There is more thinking on the part of the communicator to convey a message or the receiver to decipher and understand what was said.
Hearing people do not like written English because it requires a more exacting way to express what they want to say. Written English often loses its meaning that can easily be said in spoken English.
When you really think about it, spoke English and written English are actually two different languages with their own context, syntax, and usage. Much like deaf use ASL and written English which are two different languages with their own context, syntax, and usage.
For deaf people, SEE is the written English parallel. When SEE is used, exact signs have to be used and sentence structures have to be used. When SEE is used, the data flow rate changes and slows down, understandability decreases. SEE is not a visual language. It is an attempt to put some auditory discipline in a visual language.
ASL has been built up over generations and generations of our deaf ancestors over the ages. It has been refined and tried, and it still is. ASL is a living language and it changes over time. Despite the fact that there is a general disagreement about SEE, some SEE signs have made it into the ASL signs (such as using B at the mouth for breakfast, L for at the mouth for lunch, and D at the mouth for dinner or S at the mouth for supper).
John Egbert talks about computer to computer communication or data flow. Within each computer there are buffers that control the rate by which data is sent to the other computer or the rate that data flow is received.
Human beings are much like that. We all have our own buffers to send and receive communication data flow. All of our buffers whether sending or receiving all have different rates and capacities by which you can understand something or transmit something. If you overwhelm your own sending buffer, your data flow to the other person doesn’t work very well. If you overwhelm your own receiving buffer, data flow in to your own head also doesn’t work all.
Data flow that John Egbert has alluded to is a very powerful concept that not only would impact deaf education but hearing education, business and international communications as well.
So, how can we do this? How do we proceed?
Yes it is true that I had raised oral from birth to 9 years old which was so hard. Example to read set and sit, six or sixteen or sixty, run or run are many, that are looking alike to read lip that hard. I was transfered to deaf school and was very happy to understand everything as I learned quickly. I wish I was in deaf school when I was six years old which would be best in a long life. I met few oral people who try to learn asl that was worse for them to understand between asl and gesture. I support ASL the best! Where will I find support you or where will I reach someone? Your email address is good one for me to reach and see what I can help????? Thank you and hope to hear from you real soon.
Dear John,
I think that your research project is an excellent idea!
I was raised as an oral student (no interpreters or notetaking and sign language use was forbidden at that time) until I was about 12. Then I was transferred to a deaf residential school, I learned ASL which was the other side of language to learn and it took me a long time to develop my fluency in it. It took me 7 years to achieve that!
Well, to me, when we compare oral with ASL, and it shows a pretty sharp contrast between them; but, as I looked back, I would rather to have SEE or something like that, being in use as a moderate (between the “extremes” ORAL and ASL) in schools/colleges for education so to increase the deaf students’ vocabulary better. At first, ASL helped me to catch up with English language and vocabulary, yes, but only to some degree. Once I was in college, ASL seems no longer to meet higher needs of college students because there was a lot of terms to learn where ASL is lagging behind and because many of us now have better vocabulary than ASL vocabulary so ASL has its own limited uses. Sometimes I wish for ASL teachers or even deaf people to create more signs for bigger words of our beautiful English language.
I believe ASL is a beautiful language for deaf people as well as hearing people to use for communication; but, from my experience, it seems to serve them better for social purposes rather than for educational needs of deaf students. So from that, I cannot bring myself to agree with you 100% that “pure” ASL is the way to go in schools or even in colleges. Oral is considered as an extreme, right for many of us; but I consider that ASL is another extreme also, so I would not even encourage that to happen in schools or colleges!
When you start researching on data flow rate, make sure to indicate types of hearing loss that deaf people have because I suspect for a long time that degrees of hearing losses may affect their data flow rate as well while they receive date through those types of methods. Types or degrees of hearing losses may be considered as variables in your research.
I look forward to hearing what you have learned when your research is done. Best wishes and good luck!
John, you have excellent point about the data flow. I strongly agreed with you. I wanted to add to ASL as you said it has more than 180 data per minute. ASL is like a 3-D language. Teaching with fluent ASL would work best. Researching and documenting is excellent idea. Teaching parents ASL, show the documented films how young children responded differently with ASL, oral method, etc. So they would see the children’s excitement and communicative with each other in ASL. And show how much Deaf adults enjoyed with ASL at clubs. So that would spark parents and keep learning ASL all the way evens thou it is hard to learn. They would keep in mind what they saw in the films.
Egbert,
Well done! Thanks for telling the truth!
If I were a parent of blind child, I would ask several blind folks to see which method would suit my blind chilid the best. So why cannot hearing parents be smart enough to ask Deafies to see which communication method would suit the best for their deaf child including the data flowing as you have clearly mentioned.
Now I’m commenting on the responder named LoveASL August 8th, 2007 8:20am
Hi LoveASL,
I want to correct of your statement, so your comment won’t mislead the numerous readers to think that way.
For general ASL grammar, sign once is verb, not noun. Sign twice is noun. Your example “Eating” is happened to be one of exception. No offense intended. Just want to correct it, smile. Appreciate knowing that you found the good topic for your thesis project.
Regards
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