Sign Language Isn't Just for Babies
May 25, 2018 9:50 PM Subscribe
Language welcomes, but it also excludes. The fundamental injustice of the baby sign-language trend is that our culture touts the benefits of signing for hearing children, but disregards A.S.L. for the deaf children who need it the most.
For decades, medical and educational professionals have discouraged hearing parents from signing with their deaf children. My own parents were told not to sign with me when I was a baby — and then proceeded to disregard that advice, for which I am exceedingly grateful. Some of these professionals believe that speech is superior and signing is only a crutch for spoken language acquisition, despite the fact that A.S.L. has been recognized as a full language since the 1960s.
The consequences of this philosophy of enforced speech for deaf education, literacy and language development have been disastrous: It has meant that many deaf children never acquire a fluent native language that will enable them to reach their potential. This is starting to change, but most deaf children still do not receive full A.S.L. exposure in their early years, which are critical for language acquisition.
For decades, medical and educational professionals have discouraged hearing parents from signing with their deaf children. My own parents were told not to sign with me when I was a baby — and then proceeded to disregard that advice, for which I am exceedingly grateful. Some of these professionals believe that speech is superior and signing is only a crutch for spoken language acquisition, despite the fact that A.S.L. has been recognized as a full language since the 1960s.
The consequences of this philosophy of enforced speech for deaf education, literacy and language development have been disastrous: It has meant that many deaf children never acquire a fluent native language that will enable them to reach their potential. This is starting to change, but most deaf children still do not receive full A.S.L. exposure in their early years, which are critical for language acquisition.
I don't think there are many, if any, oral schools left in the US. And good riddance.
All deaf children should have access to a signed-language environment from the onset of language acquisition. Oral-only schooling is a deeply misguided, profound human rights injustice and has been globally discredited. Sadly, there are still pockets of malign ignorance.
There are two widespread misunderstandings that contributed to the rise of oral education that prohibits signing; misunderstandings which persist to this day.
The first, with wide-ranging implications, is the very wrong intuition that many people have about signed languages: that they're not genuine languages and are, rather, merely elaborated gestural semi-communication. It took a long while, but eventually linguistics recognized that signed languages are in every respect full human languages.
Second, people don't recognize the vital importance of how infants begin to aquire language. It starts early, and it is dependent upon an environment with language. Depriving a child of a language-rich environment during those early years of language acquisition causes developmental disabilities that, in many cases, can never fully be overcome. We learn language by hearing (or seeing) it and using it. Language is neither exclusively innate nor exclusively environmental -- our brains are primed to aquire it, if it is environmentally available. Prohibiting deaf children from signing is a profound form of neglect.
From the late nineteenth century to the postwar years, in the US especially there was a wave of oral education dogmatism. This is especially regrettable given that, prior to this, the US along with France, were at the forefront of deaf education. In the majority of deaf schools, children were not only not taught ASL, but were punished if caught signing.
In the early fifties, my grandmother on her doctor's advice and with great misgivings sent my deaf aunt to an oral school out of state. This was torturous for my aunt; she and her classmates were beaten when caught signing. After a couple of years, against all expert advice, my grandmother brought my aunt home and then enrolled her in a nearby manual school.
Nevertheless, my aunt was traumatized and remains bitter about this to this day.
Additionally, despite the fact that she was (reputedly) the first deaf woman in the US to earn a graduate degree in business, her language skills are slightly below average -- there was no one at home who signed and so her early development was in a language-deficient environment, exacerbated by her early oral-only education.
Even putting the issue of language acquisition aside, the fact is that language makes up a key part of culture and ethnicity. Being a native ASL (or other signed language) signer means being fully part of a language community. Deaf children in hearing families and communities are always, to some extent, apart and "othered". There is absolutely something invaluable for a deaf child to be part of a signed language community. Many of the disabilities that hearing people associate with deafness are not disabilities within the context of a signed language community. Depriving deaf children of sign is depriving them of language and keeping them from communities in which they thrive.
What we now know about language acquisition is the impetus for teaching rudimentary sign to hearing infants: it is language acquisition that can begin somewhat earlier than with spoken language. It's useful and it may slightly accelerate language acquisition. So that's okay.
I wouldn't dare speak for this writer, but my sense is that there's a rightful frustration with hearing people appropriating sign in this context while being utterly ignorant of ASL as a rich linguistic community and its history, ignorant of the sad history of deaf education in North America, and taking ASL for granted as a child-raising trend while not appreciating the very long and difficult fight that Deaf people have waged to not be abused, and to not be forbidden their natural linguistic communities.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:17 AM on May 26, 2018 [49 favorites]
All deaf children should have access to a signed-language environment from the onset of language acquisition. Oral-only schooling is a deeply misguided, profound human rights injustice and has been globally discredited. Sadly, there are still pockets of malign ignorance.
There are two widespread misunderstandings that contributed to the rise of oral education that prohibits signing; misunderstandings which persist to this day.
The first, with wide-ranging implications, is the very wrong intuition that many people have about signed languages: that they're not genuine languages and are, rather, merely elaborated gestural semi-communication. It took a long while, but eventually linguistics recognized that signed languages are in every respect full human languages.
Second, people don't recognize the vital importance of how infants begin to aquire language. It starts early, and it is dependent upon an environment with language. Depriving a child of a language-rich environment during those early years of language acquisition causes developmental disabilities that, in many cases, can never fully be overcome. We learn language by hearing (or seeing) it and using it. Language is neither exclusively innate nor exclusively environmental -- our brains are primed to aquire it, if it is environmentally available. Prohibiting deaf children from signing is a profound form of neglect.
From the late nineteenth century to the postwar years, in the US especially there was a wave of oral education dogmatism. This is especially regrettable given that, prior to this, the US along with France, were at the forefront of deaf education. In the majority of deaf schools, children were not only not taught ASL, but were punished if caught signing.
In the early fifties, my grandmother on her doctor's advice and with great misgivings sent my deaf aunt to an oral school out of state. This was torturous for my aunt; she and her classmates were beaten when caught signing. After a couple of years, against all expert advice, my grandmother brought my aunt home and then enrolled her in a nearby manual school.
Nevertheless, my aunt was traumatized and remains bitter about this to this day.
Additionally, despite the fact that she was (reputedly) the first deaf woman in the US to earn a graduate degree in business, her language skills are slightly below average -- there was no one at home who signed and so her early development was in a language-deficient environment, exacerbated by her early oral-only education.
Even putting the issue of language acquisition aside, the fact is that language makes up a key part of culture and ethnicity. Being a native ASL (or other signed language) signer means being fully part of a language community. Deaf children in hearing families and communities are always, to some extent, apart and "othered". There is absolutely something invaluable for a deaf child to be part of a signed language community. Many of the disabilities that hearing people associate with deafness are not disabilities within the context of a signed language community. Depriving deaf children of sign is depriving them of language and keeping them from communities in which they thrive.
What we now know about language acquisition is the impetus for teaching rudimentary sign to hearing infants: it is language acquisition that can begin somewhat earlier than with spoken language. It's useful and it may slightly accelerate language acquisition. So that's okay.
I wouldn't dare speak for this writer, but my sense is that there's a rightful frustration with hearing people appropriating sign in this context while being utterly ignorant of ASL as a rich linguistic community and its history, ignorant of the sad history of deaf education in North America, and taking ASL for granted as a child-raising trend while not appreciating the very long and difficult fight that Deaf people have waged to not be abused, and to not be forbidden their natural linguistic communities.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:17 AM on May 26, 2018 [49 favorites]
I had no idea that people were telling parents of deaf children not to sign to them even in modern day. That’s terrible.
posted by corb at 6:50 AM on May 26, 2018 [16 favorites]
posted by corb at 6:50 AM on May 26, 2018 [16 favorites]
The article draws strong parallels to the struggles of other marginalized communities - I kept thinking of the ways Native cultures in the US and Canada have been treated, where kids were forced to speak English, beaten for speaking their own languages, and then had to deal with white people picking up (and misinterpreting and disrespecting) little bits of Native cultures and talking about how beautiful and spiritual it was.
This isn't that much different.
Of everyone I've known who decided to sign with a baby, exactly one person has had a larger interest in sign language. Everyone else just did it with their baby and then dropped it.
posted by bile and syntax at 7:36 AM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
This isn't that much different.
Of everyone I've known who decided to sign with a baby, exactly one person has had a larger interest in sign language. Everyone else just did it with their baby and then dropped it.
posted by bile and syntax at 7:36 AM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
It's common knowledge that humans are only capable of learning one language. There were rumors of a bilingual-sage living sometime in 17th century Pomerania, but come on, we all know that's about as likely as jet fuel melting steel beams!
posted by blue_beetle at 7:40 AM on May 26, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by blue_beetle at 7:40 AM on May 26, 2018 [6 favorites]
This is so frustrating. It's both ableist and cultural arrogance to just take easily-digestible snippets from a whole language and culture, while ignoring both any accommodations you might make to the people whose culture it is and the larger gains society as a whole could make by including them. I think 'Deaf Gain' is going to be a fruitful search term for me in the near future.
This post reminded me of a set of blog posts (part one here) about the state of sign language and signed education in Nicaragua. Part three is especially interesting if you're wondering about the effect of language deprivation in early life.
posted by daisyk at 8:10 AM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
This post reminded me of a set of blog posts (part one here) about the state of sign language and signed education in Nicaragua. Part three is especially interesting if you're wondering about the effect of language deprivation in early life.
posted by daisyk at 8:10 AM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
Signing is not a good method of long-term communication for people with autism, mainly because nobody in the general public uses or understands sign. There is some research evidence that early sign usage can help to develop communication concepts, but you can't order a Diet Coke, bean burrito, and carne asada at Taco Generico using sign.
The iPad and the Picture Exchange Communication System are much more effective communication systems for non-verbal people who do not live in a culture of sign language.
posted by ITravelMontana at 8:14 AM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
The iPad and the Picture Exchange Communication System are much more effective communication systems for non-verbal people who do not live in a culture of sign language.
posted by ITravelMontana at 8:14 AM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
"It's common knowledge that humans are only capable of learning one language."
I'm assuming you're satirizing those who don't want deaf kids to learn a signed language, but it could be interpretated the other direction (that if kids don't learn sign early, they can learn it later).
I've recently seen some research that argues against this, but it's been understood for awhile that most (not all, there are outliers) people will only become natively fluent in a language if they begin young and within an environment rich in that language(s). So for native fluency in a signed language, early exposure is important.
Independent of this is the necessity of being in a linguistic community of some kind -- that is to say, a fully deaf child expected to aquire language exclusively orally/written is a child that is in the very unusual situation of being in an environment without language during the most important years of native language acquisition.
Regardless of how wide the window for fluency is when one language is already native, having no language in the environment during those early years is almost certainly necessarily developmentally harmful. Yes, we're recently learning that the brain is far more plastic into and through adulthood than previously thought, but there's still a boatload of evidence, neurological and developmental, that with regard to language there's some magic that happens early on that can't happen later.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:25 AM on May 26, 2018 [5 favorites]
I'm assuming you're satirizing those who don't want deaf kids to learn a signed language, but it could be interpretated the other direction (that if kids don't learn sign early, they can learn it later).
I've recently seen some research that argues against this, but it's been understood for awhile that most (not all, there are outliers) people will only become natively fluent in a language if they begin young and within an environment rich in that language(s). So for native fluency in a signed language, early exposure is important.
Independent of this is the necessity of being in a linguistic community of some kind -- that is to say, a fully deaf child expected to aquire language exclusively orally/written is a child that is in the very unusual situation of being in an environment without language during the most important years of native language acquisition.
Regardless of how wide the window for fluency is when one language is already native, having no language in the environment during those early years is almost certainly necessarily developmentally harmful. Yes, we're recently learning that the brain is far more plastic into and through adulthood than previously thought, but there's still a boatload of evidence, neurological and developmental, that with regard to language there's some magic that happens early on that can't happen later.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:25 AM on May 26, 2018 [5 favorites]
Anecdote: I was denied ASL as the language requirement for graduation in the 90s at a major university (Stanford). I had petitioned for acceptance and denied because "there is no cultural component to ASL. Languages must have a cultural component!"
I approached the chair of the Linguistics department and we took it to the academic council and had it accepted! I recall him telling the council that "to say there is no cultural component to deaf culture in this day and age is an archaic perception."
Bird song is an interesting study in language acquisition. If young birds are not exposed to song in a specific time frame, the song is never crystallized (learned). Humans are more fluid on that time variable, but that initial period for language acquisition is still major/primary to fluency.
posted by CrowGoat at 9:01 AM on May 26, 2018 [21 favorites]
I approached the chair of the Linguistics department and we took it to the academic council and had it accepted! I recall him telling the council that "to say there is no cultural component to deaf culture in this day and age is an archaic perception."
Bird song is an interesting study in language acquisition. If young birds are not exposed to song in a specific time frame, the song is never crystallized (learned). Humans are more fluid on that time variable, but that initial period for language acquisition is still major/primary to fluency.
posted by CrowGoat at 9:01 AM on May 26, 2018 [21 favorites]
Signing is not a good method of long-term communication for people with autism
My understanding is they use sign language as a bridge to teaching spoken language. My nephew is autistic and was nonverbal until age 5. Teaching him sign language taught him to communicate, then once he understood that communication was a thing that people did they were able to begin teaching him how to do it with speech.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:31 AM on May 26, 2018 [12 favorites]
My understanding is they use sign language as a bridge to teaching spoken language. My nephew is autistic and was nonverbal until age 5. Teaching him sign language taught him to communicate, then once he understood that communication was a thing that people did they were able to begin teaching him how to do it with speech.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:31 AM on May 26, 2018 [12 favorites]
Yes. This is important. Thank you for this.
posted by greermahoney at 9:40 AM on May 26, 2018
posted by greermahoney at 9:40 AM on May 26, 2018
Often, I notice that these acquaintances are people who have never attempted to use any sign language with me — even though I am deaf, even though I am the one person they know who could most benefit from visual communication. This omission strikes me as a huge loss, even a huge injustice.
Everybody should learn the sign for "thank you" even if you don't have deaf friends because of all the deaf people working in customer-facing positions. Or if you're in a customer-facing position yourself, for your deaf customers. That's just basic politeness.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:43 AM on May 26, 2018 [10 favorites]
Everybody should learn the sign for "thank you" even if you don't have deaf friends because of all the deaf people working in customer-facing positions. Or if you're in a customer-facing position yourself, for your deaf customers. That's just basic politeness.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:43 AM on May 26, 2018 [10 favorites]
For folks commenting that ASL is not a good option for autistic folks because we live in a culture that doesn't sign much, is that the issue? Like, would ASL be a good communication option for autistic people if ASL were common?
posted by bile and syntax at 10:20 AM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by bile and syntax at 10:20 AM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
A thing that always made me so angry in my work with babies were the parents who took all the time to teach baby signing to their child and then purposefully ignored it when it was easier for them in a way they wouldn't ignore yelling, etc.
I was around the capital D Deaf community for a large part of my childhood. I used to know way more ASL than I remember now. I should relearn it and start using more signs out in public until it becomes second nature to do so.
Thanks for posting this.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 11:01 AM on May 26, 2018 [4 favorites]
I was around the capital D Deaf community for a large part of my childhood. I used to know way more ASL than I remember now. I should relearn it and start using more signs out in public until it becomes second nature to do so.
Thanks for posting this.
posted by I'm Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today! at 11:01 AM on May 26, 2018 [4 favorites]
Often, I notice that these acquaintances are people who have never attempted to use any sign language with me — even though I am deaf, even though I am the one person they know who could most benefit from visual communication. This omission strikes me as a huge loss, even a huge injustice.
I'm not sure how I would use my very beginner level ASL with an adult acquaintance, who presumably speaks English pretty fluently to be having these conversations. I don't try and use Spanish with my Hispanic friends who speak English either, although I might try with a baby. I wonder if she's asked them to use it with her.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 11:21 AM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure how I would use my very beginner level ASL with an adult acquaintance, who presumably speaks English pretty fluently to be having these conversations. I don't try and use Spanish with my Hispanic friends who speak English either, although I might try with a baby. I wonder if she's asked them to use it with her.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 11:21 AM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
"For folks commenting that ASL is not a good option for autistic folks because we live in a culture that doesn't sign much, is that the issue? Like, would ASL be a good communication option for autistic people if ASL were common?"
Yes.
One reason that communicaton systems* based on icons/pictures with descriptive words are effective is that the communication partner can recognize the picture of a Diet Coke label, the icon of a hard shell taco and words "carne asida." Most people aleady have learned those communication systems.
As noted above, sign language can be a means of teaching a child how communication systems work. But the problems come when the child is not in a culture of people using sign language to communicate. I have worked with kids autism all over Montana for the last 30+ years. The few instances of effective sign communication I have seen have been when the school special education staff are fluent in sign language and USE it, both expressively and receptively. But that still limits contact with peers, who typically don't learn more than a few simple signs in grade school but never develop fluency. Most of the adults in the school also don't learn more than a few signs.
And using signed communication isn't useful with almost everyone in the larger community.
* https://pecsusa.com/pecs/
posted by ITravelMontana at 11:51 AM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
Yes.
One reason that communicaton systems* based on icons/pictures with descriptive words are effective is that the communication partner can recognize the picture of a Diet Coke label, the icon of a hard shell taco and words "carne asida." Most people aleady have learned those communication systems.
As noted above, sign language can be a means of teaching a child how communication systems work. But the problems come when the child is not in a culture of people using sign language to communicate. I have worked with kids autism all over Montana for the last 30+ years. The few instances of effective sign communication I have seen have been when the school special education staff are fluent in sign language and USE it, both expressively and receptively. But that still limits contact with peers, who typically don't learn more than a few simple signs in grade school but never develop fluency. Most of the adults in the school also don't learn more than a few signs.
And using signed communication isn't useful with almost everyone in the larger community.
* https://pecsusa.com/pecs/
posted by ITravelMontana at 11:51 AM on May 26, 2018 [2 favorites]
Ivan has it largely right upthread. I'm the product of an oral only philosophy during a time when hearing aids were not capable of meeting my needs; it was only with the advent of digital hearing aids that speech therapy could begin to be effective for me, to illustrate how much I was not aided by my aids. It's been strange. I'm fluent in reading and writing English, but I am not a fluent speaker or listener of English. My deaf accent is heavy and people are exhausting to comprehend, and the profound deficiencies of English to serve my needs are many.
Sign, though. Even as a poor signer, even as I am still and will always be not-native in my local sign, it is my language. I feel it acutely. I understand it. I am in fact meant to understand. There is no settling for eked out fragments. In sign, I am not missing the foundation it relies on. I am just learning.
For a long time, I was bitter about the feeling that my language was stolen from me. There is a local community. I could have had people to talk to. I could have had anyone at all to talk to. I still feel it was stolen, I feel the loss, but I am not generally bitter.
Things like baby sign, though, where hearing parents play at the basic communication I had none of, not even a way to ask for more, and discard it when I would have given everything as a child to have known any way to say no, just to have said it at all- then, I am bitter.
Good article. Thanks for posting it, Toddles.
posted by E. Whitehall at 11:40 PM on May 26, 2018 [14 favorites]
Sign, though. Even as a poor signer, even as I am still and will always be not-native in my local sign, it is my language. I feel it acutely. I understand it. I am in fact meant to understand. There is no settling for eked out fragments. In sign, I am not missing the foundation it relies on. I am just learning.
For a long time, I was bitter about the feeling that my language was stolen from me. There is a local community. I could have had people to talk to. I could have had anyone at all to talk to. I still feel it was stolen, I feel the loss, but I am not generally bitter.
Things like baby sign, though, where hearing parents play at the basic communication I had none of, not even a way to ask for more, and discard it when I would have given everything as a child to have known any way to say no, just to have said it at all- then, I am bitter.
Good article. Thanks for posting it, Toddles.
posted by E. Whitehall at 11:40 PM on May 26, 2018 [14 favorites]
I'm not sure how I would use my very beginner level ASL with an adult acquaintance, who presumably speaks English pretty fluently to be having these conversations. I don't try and use Spanish with my Hispanic friends who speak English either, although I might try with a baby.
I've tried to learn three languages, ASL being one of them, and I am just terrible at languages. I literally cannot speak in any of them, my brain chokes. I couldn't tell you my name if asked it in one of the languages I tried to learn. I didn't even try to use ASL with a deaf coworker because I knew how bad I was. And yesterday I was on a tour with someone who was deaf and I accidentally stepped on his foot and I am pretty sure I managed to sign "bathroom" instead of "sorry." Good job!
Really, I'm afraid if I use one or two signs (which I am terrible at anyway), they'll get excited and want to talk and all I can do is jack shit. If I successfully got one sign out, it seems like I'm leading them on.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:01 AM on May 27, 2018
I've tried to learn three languages, ASL being one of them, and I am just terrible at languages. I literally cannot speak in any of them, my brain chokes. I couldn't tell you my name if asked it in one of the languages I tried to learn. I didn't even try to use ASL with a deaf coworker because I knew how bad I was. And yesterday I was on a tour with someone who was deaf and I accidentally stepped on his foot and I am pretty sure I managed to sign "bathroom" instead of "sorry." Good job!
Really, I'm afraid if I use one or two signs (which I am terrible at anyway), they'll get excited and want to talk and all I can do is jack shit. If I successfully got one sign out, it seems like I'm leading them on.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:01 AM on May 27, 2018
Don't worry, it's like apologizing with a strong foreign accent.
posted by bq at 8:25 PM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by bq at 8:25 PM on May 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
If I successfully got one sign out, it seems like I'm leading them on.
I once asked someone, on an airplane, if she needed to get out to use the bathroom (as I was in the aisle seat). I don't sign very well and have a tiny vocabulary, but I could both ask that and say that I don't know very much sign and that was sufficient. After being excited that I attempted communication at all, she pulled out a notebook and we spent the rest of the flight talking to each other in that. I think reaching out to people is worth it, even when you can't do it as well as you'd like.
I also signed with my daughter from a young age, what ASL I could remember, because I wanted her to have language. If she had been deaf or hard of hearing, then I would have kept it up and taken classes to learn more myself. But I had a Deaf stepmom for a few years, as a kid, so that seemed like the thing to do.
posted by Margalo Epps at 10:19 AM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
I once asked someone, on an airplane, if she needed to get out to use the bathroom (as I was in the aisle seat). I don't sign very well and have a tiny vocabulary, but I could both ask that and say that I don't know very much sign and that was sufficient. After being excited that I attempted communication at all, she pulled out a notebook and we spent the rest of the flight talking to each other in that. I think reaching out to people is worth it, even when you can't do it as well as you'd like.
I also signed with my daughter from a young age, what ASL I could remember, because I wanted her to have language. If she had been deaf or hard of hearing, then I would have kept it up and taken classes to learn more myself. But I had a Deaf stepmom for a few years, as a kid, so that seemed like the thing to do.
posted by Margalo Epps at 10:19 AM on May 30, 2018 [3 favorites]
My former coworker (we communicated by typing in a notepad on the work computer) told me that ASL is a lot faster than English. And that it's only in the past few years that ASL was recognized as a language in public schools. I couldn't find a cite during a quick search, but there's this.
posted by aniola at 11:20 AM on June 1, 2018
posted by aniola at 11:20 AM on June 1, 2018
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In 20-freaking-14.
By the well-respected, head of Child Psychology at a prestigious teaching institution.
There is still so much education to be done.
posted by arrmatie at 4:10 AM on May 26, 2018 [20 favorites]