The Speech Therapist Says ASL is Too Hard to Learn
Here’s old article. Look at this paragraph near the end (I added the bold print)
QUOTE
The answer, it seems, is that hearing parents should learn ASL. But even professionals can discourage that. Betsy Orlando still shakes her head when discussing the speech therapist, sent by the government-funded Early Intervention program, who was intent on giving speech lessons to her profoundly deaf daughter. When asked to work on sign language instead, the therapist chided Orlando - even more so when she discovered that the family planned to learn ASL. “She said, `Do you know how hard that’s going to be?’ ” said Orlando. “I was blown away at that attitude.”
UNQUOTE
DEAF EDUCATION’S SEVERAL VOICES
Boston Globe
May 14, 2000
Author: Constance Pittman Lindner, Globe Correspondent
When the South Shore Educational Collaborative’s Deaf and Hard of Hearing program closed last June, Betsy and Jim Orlando picked up stakes in Hingham and moved to Sudbury. That way, their 7-year-old daughter, Jennifer, would be able to make a reasonable commute to The Learning Center for Deaf Children in Framingham. It’s not that other options for schools for the deaf didn’t exist closer to home.
For example, the READS Program for Deaf & Hard of Hearing Children in Middleborough and The Learning Center for Deaf Children’s satellite school in Randolph were presented as nearby alternatives for the dozen or so students left behind.
The catch? Not all schools for the deaf use the same language. Only The Learning Center in Framingham had the American Sign Language environment Jennifer was used to.
American Sign Language, or ASL, is the mainstay of one of three types of education for the deaf: bilingual-bicultural. In “bi-bi” programs, ASL is the first language and deaf culture, the first culture. English is learned on top of a strong ASL foundation. (ASL is not, as many assume, English.)
The second type of education for the deaf, the oral/aural approach, emphasizes teaching students to speak English as well as “speechread,” discerning words in a speaker’s mouth movements. The third approach, total communication, uses both a signed language closer to English than ASL and spoken English simultaneously.
Most schools offer a mix of approaches. For instance, ASL is offered at both READS and the Randolph Learning Center. But as they are primarily total-communication environments, it is not the language used in most of the classrooms or out on the playground. That wasn’t enough to provide the strong ASL base Jennifer’s parents wanted.
It might seem counterintuitive for the Orlandos to be more concerned about their daughter being well-grounded in ASL than in English. Many parents of deaf children, 90 percent of whom are not deaf, want their sons and daughters taught to be as much a part of the hearing world - as much like they are - as possible.
Educational approaches such as total communication and oral communication, which hold the promise of speechreading and speech, appeal to parents thrown into the world of the deaf when they find out their child can’t hear.
The problem is, in most cases, such approaches don’t work. For profoundly deaf children, English, which requires hearing and speaking for proficiency, will never be more than a second language. Research suggests that it can’t even be that if they don’t have a firm grasp of the lexicon, syntax, and grammar of ASL from which to decipher English. Imagine trying to learn French without being well-grounded in your native tongue.
But is ASL really a “whole” language by itself? Yes, and it’s picked up as readily by deaf children as English is by hearing children. In fact, American Sign Language has been recognized in Massachusetts General Law since 1994 as a “full and legitimate language.”
It is the language of choice in the North American world of the deaf, through which people speak with hand signing, body movements, and facial expressions. It has its own history, literature, dialects, and cognitive processing.
That’s not the case with the signed English used in total communication, which was developed by hearing educators to help correct the seeming grammatical inconsistencies of American Sign Language. What is “inconsistent” about American Sign Language - that it has its own grammar and syntax apart from English - was “remedied” by new signs and jumbling the word order of ASL to match English, creating a pidgin American Sign Language. Signed English and spoken English are essentially differentlanguages, creating special difficulties for children in programs that teach both.
Following a scrambled version of one’s own language via signing while speechreading a different language is a discipline that Patrick Costello, middle school director at The Learning Center in Framingham, compares to trying to read French while listening to Japanese.
He should know; he was expected to do just that in his youth at a total communication school. He succeeded, and was praised by teachers on his speaking ability, but found that many outside his daily circle could not understand him.
At one time, he worked as an accountant, taking his lunch alone and relying on co-workers’ notes to decipher what was said at meetings he attended. But he returned to the deaf community as an educator - like many deaf adults who were trained to speechread successfully and speak English but found themselves more comfortable in the culture where ASL is used.
Parents are sometimes encouraged to steer children away from ASL. Before a deaf child starts school, she meets with specialists and educators recommended by the hospital that diagnosed the condition. They assess her needs for an Individual Education Plan.
But ASL is not always recommended. It can be a toss-up whether a deaf child is sent to a school for the deaf rather than a public school. For example, if there are several deaf children in a community, it is cheaper to mainstream them into the local schools rather than pay to send them to a school specializing in education for the deaf.
Legislation such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA-97, with its intention of inclusion for special-education students in mainstream public classrooms, reinforces to hearing parents the notion that public school is best for deaf children.
But, inclusion isn’t all that inclusive. Deaf students at public schools can generally communicate with classmates and teachers only with the aid of an interpreter. IDEA requires that need for direct communication be considered when placing students, says Kelby Nathan Brick, legal counsel of government affairs for the National Association of the Deaf.
Even the best interpreter can’t keep the student a part of the banter and nuance that make up the psychosocial development of youth. Interpreters also can only do so much to pass on classroom lectures to the deaf student.
“If you’re watching an interpreter for hours on end, your eyes get tired, but if you blink, you miss something and you’re a little behind on the information,” said Costello. “The teacher says a sentence and then the interpreter has to hear it, understand it, interpret it for you and, meanwhile, the students already have their hands up to make a point or they’re laughing over a joke you missed.”
There are no standards for teachers of the deaf. One teacher of the deaf can cover kindergarten through 12th grade. There is no acknowledgement that deaf students need high school-level teachers, said Robert Hoffmeister, director of Boston University’s programs in Deaf Studies and the Center for the Study of Communication and the Deaf and co-author of “A Journey into the DEAF-WORLD.”
Statistics cite the average 17-year-old deaf or hard-of-hearing student reads on a fourth-grade level. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communicative Disorders puts US illiteracy of the deaf at 75 percent.
Some trace that lapse to the fact that there is no one who is deaf or has a background in education of the deaf on the Massachusetts Board of Education. Advocates for the deaf say that partially explains why legislation is often based on misconceptions. “Hearing people are always speaking for the deaf, even as adults,” says Hoffmeister. “This is a continuation of the paternalistic education system.”
The hearing world also restrains the voice of the deaf even in its own world by emphasizing English over ASL.
Hearing paternalism, says Harlan Lane, author of “The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community,” is bent on “restoring deaf people to society,” without any understanding of deaf society.
There are signs that this might be shifting. State Representative Patricia D. Jehlen, D-Somerville, introduced An Act Concerning The Education Of Children Who Are Deaf Or Hard of Hearing, which provides guidance and identifies standards for the education of deaf children. To help decide whether it should be enacted, the Legislature listened to testimony about the lack of standardization for interpreters for the deaf in the education system. A man who had been an interpreter for a deaf high school student said he felt he had let the boy down. The man couldn’t sign very well and knew he was not helping the boy to learn complicated concepts or develop cognitively. Worse, the boy had no social life.
A date for a dance “would mean inviting the girl to a dance with him and the interpreter - can you visualize that?” said Jehlen, referring to the interpreter’s testimony.
Not surprisingly, Barbara Jean “BJ” Wood, commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, supports the bill, which the commission helped organize. At the very least, she said, “sign-language interpreters should be qualified and should demonstrate that they are proficient in sign language. Just as importantly, teachers and teacher aids should have a background in deafness and be able to directly and effectively communicate with the student whether in sign languageor speech-based English.”
So how should hearing parents “talk” to their deaf children?
The deaf community wants deaf children to learn ASL but most are born to hearing parents who don’t know it. How are hearing parents to teach their children language and communicate with them?
The answer, it seems, is that hearing parents should learn ASL. But even professionals can discourage that. Betsy Orlando still shakes her head when discussing the speech therapist, sent by the government-funded Early Intervention program, who was intent on giving speech lessons to her profoundly deaf daughter. When asked to work on sign language instead, the therapist chided Orlando - even more so when she discovered that the family planned to learn ASL. “She said, `Do you know how hard that’s going to be?’ ” said Orlando. “I was blown away at that attitude.”
Research bears out Orlando’s determination to use sign language with her daughter. Scandinavian and US studies show deaf infants communicated with as early as possible via sign language go through the same language acquisition and cognitive stages as hearing peers, unlike deaf children communicated with in spoken language.
It has long been known that deaf children of deaf parents fare better academically than deaf children of hearing parents. Deaf babies make experimental finger movements just as hearing infants experiment with language.
Of course, if a child is not profoundly deaf, the options widen. Francine and Bruce Ravelson’s teenage daughter, Kai, is able to draw on enough residual hearing from her hearing aid to speak English and play the flute. But even so, her parents, who are hearing, made sure that she learned to sign at an early age so she would have the most language at her disposal.
“The greatest amount of language information at the youngest age possible is imperative,” said Francine Ravelson of Milton. “I would tell parents, don’t be afraid of sign language.
Caption:
Betsy and Jennifer Orlando speak ASL.
Caption:
PHOTO
Edition:Â THIRD
Section:Â Learning
Page:Â P11
Posted on August 26th, 2007 by egbertpress
Filed under: Uncategorized
I think it is what they DON’T say more than what they do. The overall image of the deaf signing area is one of Isolation,they work from the premise no sign,or little sign used, allows a child more opportunity to escape that isolation.
Things being what they are and the various lobbies that exist and Laws, they gild the lily somewhat to avoid saying what they really think of the deaf community and the effectiveness of sign. I’ve seen very few positives emerging from the supportive systems that indicate sign is good for you. CI’s, lip-reading and oralism thus, continue to gain ground.
It is a heck of a lot easier to learn ASL than it is to distinguish between some 10,000 commonly used words just from the tiny quivers of someone’s lips!
Narrow minded!!! They are try to find an excused to say that ASL is hard to learn. Yeah right! This speech therapist is refused to learn sign language, it’s clear, no question!
This is basically untrue and no speech therapist should make this kind of statement. According to the code of ethics, no speech therapist is supposed to present information factually without bias.
For the deaf child, it is much harder to learn how to speak with the auditory organ being severely damaged than to learn a visible language. No question about this.
Let me put it this way…..When I got into high school, I’d already suffered brain damage in mathematics.
When I’d say it was too hard, the teachers would say I just needed to concentrate and try.
Therein lies the problem, if you ask me….Not only teachers and speech therapists but also parents….
if they’d try they’d do it….They’re, often, too lazy.
Let me put it this way…..When I got into high school, I’d already suffered brain damage in mathematics.
When I’d say it was too hard, the teachers would say I just needed to concentrate and try.
Therein lies the problem, if you ask me….Not only teachers and speech therapists but also parents….
if they’d try they’d do it….They’re, often, too lazy.
This may also be why we’re always told “this is a hearing world.” It’s easier for the lazy hearing people to demand the Deaf do the work than to raise a finger to help!!!
I don’t think ASL is not too hard. I think the correction was comment by Martin and Mishka Zena. I agree with them because of my childhood was forced me to speech and I could not able to speech 100% accurated the words. I dont believe his blogs seem not accurate information, Because if you became born with deafness from before the birth or accicently or unexplained of hearing loss deteroiated.
You would not picked the accurate words when you saying to Speech Therapist. I am frustarted if I contuine Speech therapist was forced me to speech. I could not talk well. so Theorefore your speech is getting worsen with or without wearing hearing aids or CI, Cohlear Implant .
some of parent forced the kids to speech therapist without ASL language. It might be difficult ..
Late 1979’s 1980’s I never forgot one of Kitty O’Neil who was stuntwoman who is deaf and was lecture. She could not prounced with one word when interpreter could not understand her. she is not accurate perfect skilled with the prounced she could not able to say one words once time. she doesnt know ASL. I thought That’s sad if she could not know how to say one perfectionst words of prounced. she say I know only is I love you , ASL language.
she once say that she killed the man who was entered the door at Hotel. she could not hear until someone attacked her and she did killed the man who heard her that she told the woman or man to wake her up for next day . because no alarm with her because she would not able to hear the clock alarm. That’s how he heard her comment.
I was stunned to learn that she did krate him and killed him. I keep wonder how she can do that?
Deaf Pixie
I answered no to that a speech therapy thinks it is hard to learn ASL! I have hard time to learn English as my second langauge! I have learned to think speratedly two ways not including any language. I learned to read in hard way. When I was eleven years old I finally learned how to write in English, my reading is already skill since I was much younger than 11, English is most difficult and complete language. I had to think English as it is not the way I thought. I had to sperate different way of learning English in one way! I found I learned much easier to express better in English. Even though English is not hard to learn. By the way I learned how to use my imagination of English that is basis sound. So you might not know how to use your imagination, think one way not let to think English you would not learn ASL. ASL and English do not mix in learning both ways. That would confuse you more. Just think one way: using your imagination, you might find much easier to learn ASL!
Of course, the speech therapist would say that ASL is too hard to learn… he/she doesn’t want to lose their job!!!
If all hearing parents learn ASL, if all Deaf children learn ASL — and no Deaf children take speech lessons, then all speech therapists are out of a job, right? So, it makes sense that the speech therapist would discourage the parents by saying that ASL is too hard to learn. Grrrrrr!