Day Two – Sign Language Rights for All Children
Photos – Notes, these photos were from other Deaf ex-students while I am currently researching in the Deaf Units – Hamilton, New Zealand. Permission granted.
Sign Language is a language, D/deaf young toddlers and children can learn naturally. Around 95% of D/deaf children are born to hearing parents who usually don’t know sign language, most of those children receive late exposure to sign language resulting in late cognitive development and less chance to acquired language proficiency. Early access to sign language and quality inclusive education through a national sign language and national written language for ALL D/deaf children is fundamental to ensuring their human rights to secure this right, families of D/deaf children must receive state-funded sign language instruction s early as possible.
In addition, D/deaf children have the right to receive education in their natural language through quality inclusive bilingual education in a national sign language and national written language. Teachers must be fluent in sign languages with a native-level proficiency and D/deaf children must be surrounded by their D/deaf peers and D/deaf adult role model. These settings are crucial to the development of their identity.
Today there is an urgent need of awareness through education about our sign language, the skill of the teachers with sign language plus written language. On the other side, in the Health area, a small number of families with a deaf toddler or a young child wearing cochlear implant through Health funding, private funding or personal income by using house mortgage etc. To have a cochlear implant – a young child must go through cognitive therapy, speech therapy, and not having the opportunity to learn sign language.
In our early days, we were not allowed to use sign language in the classroom because of the ban of the sign language in 1880 by the Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf – The Milan Conference. The teachers of the Deaf, the Specialists in the Medical area believed oral was better than sign language and they declared that oral education was better than manual sign education in 1880. The result of the Deaf teachers was fired and no longer hiring into a Deaf Education or forced to work as a deaf oralist teacher instead of signing to students. HORROR!!
We continued to communicate in sign language behind the teachers’ back, got involved with the Deaf adults through Deaf clubs, Deaf friends outside the school terms over many years. BUT they have not improved their written language because they found it too hard to understand our English grammar rules and take a long time to write down or to sign in English Sign Language. For me, I am still learning to write/type differently when I am doing a blog, formal email letter, etc. Nobody is perfect out there, including hearing people and young adult do have the same problem in literacy.
Did you know that it is easier to learn or to teach D/deaf baby in sign language from 12 weeks old onward? Is it challenging to prepare a D/deaf child to speak, and this D/deaf child will have a language deprivation/delay before going to school? A simple answer from me – yes, it is BETTER to teach in sign language to ALL D/deaf baby or children early because they pick up sign language quickly. For example, any D/deaf toddler will have 75 or more sign language words in a year than a spoken baby/toddler will pick up around 35 spoken words a year. When I was young, around 18 months old, I went through speech therapy by wearing hearing aids, and it took a very long time to speak correctly. It was a lot of hard works to figure out how to pronounce the right sounds, BUT it is not easy for me.
If you think about a hearing child with a D/deaf parents. How would a hearing child hear the spoken words or understand written language before going to school?? Here is one video which I recorded to a person – Ed (Edward) for I know his parents through the Deaf community for many years. He was formerly a CODA (Child/children of Deaf Adult). Note in the video, there is a captioning but it is not perfect which I can not recorrect through YouTube. You can listen to him.
Yes, many D/deaf parents use their child/children as a communicator where there is no interpreter available. Their children learnt to sign language from the start until they (children) go to school.
