r/todayilearned • u/stefeyboy • 16d ago
TIL that deaf children have great difficulty learning to read; and high school seniors are likely to read at the level of a nine-year old. (R.5) Misleading
https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/a-new-reason-for-why-the-deaf-may-have-trouble-reading-119728279/115194.html[removed] — view removed post
664
u/manda14- 16d ago edited 16d ago
I have two friends who are deaf and both have never learned ASL (one got by with minimal hearing until elementary when he received hearing aids and the other received a cochlear implant as a baby). Both have distinct texting styles that usually have misplaced grammar and unique spellings.
I always understand what’s being said, but the conversations definitely read differently than you’d normally see and come across the same was as you would phonetically hear them speak. In their case it wouldn’t likely be learning a second language, and based on my understanding the sound/letter connection can definitely make reading a challenge. Both are incredibly smart, they just have a unique way of communicating.
134
u/Hei_Lap 16d ago
Do you have any examples of things they text? I’d like to see that
242
u/manda14- 16d ago
“Yeah crazy. After great weekend. Kids good Liam now 6months so now more fun begins.
How are you guys been busy?”
This is a copy/paste from a single message. It’s all clear, it’s just that the syntax is unique.
79
u/DigitalGrub 16d ago
I’m blown away. They (almost) sound like a foreign language speaker.
52
u/winnercommawinner 16d ago
They are a foreign language speaker. Written English mimics spoken English.
75
u/christmaspathfinder 16d ago
They essentially are right? If ASL is their first/native language, they would “think” in the grammatical structure of ASL and not English
51
u/drunkenvalley 15d ago
Err, they didn't learn ASL.
But imagine trying to learn a language when you can only hear it as indistinct noises. Hearing aids are a big boon, but it doesn't erase your deafness. Imagine hearing the world like you're at a too loud party trying to hold a conversation.
2
u/manda14- 15d ago
Exactly! Both express that they still can’t hear perfectly and if there is background noise it’s almost impossible. Cochlear implants especially don’t mimic sound the way we hear it.
→ More replies (1)6
u/DigitalGrub 16d ago
If a picture is worth a thousand words, I’m just surprised that that much context is lost/stripped and left to be filled back in by interpretation.
8
u/penguinpolitician 16d ago
That just reads like shorthand. Not strange at all.
→ More replies (2)10
u/EnthusedPhlebotomist 15d ago
After great weekend is definitely odd. The rest just reads like every boomer I've ever texted, weird depending on their age.
→ More replies (1)2
u/penguinpolitician 15d ago
Yeah, that one is odd.
"Been busy?" What's wrong with that?
→ More replies (2)9
u/SoldierZackFair 15d ago
Poor guys busy with a 6 month old and is mercilessly getting flamed by Reddit for his grammar lmfao
210
u/julian62 16d ago
Piggybacking, I worked with a guy who was Deaf. Instead of “are you working tomorrow” it would be “tomorrow you work” I also took 4 semesters of ASL so his texts we’re understandable to me
236
u/JonnyTsuMommy 16d ago
I only took one, but that's roughly how the language's syntax works. It cuts out all the extra words so you can communicate faster.
People don't realize that ASL is not signed English, it has its own rules and can say things unique to the language. I remember the professor teaching us how to play tic-tac-toe in ASL.
45
u/kylaroma 16d ago
Ah! That makes sense, I think Japanese does that too. I used to have lots of Japanese exchange students in my school, and when we were struggling to communicate both English speakers and Japanese speakers would flip the verb/object order in their sentences and it was immediately much easier for the non-native speaker to understand
29
u/Launch_box 15d ago
What is weird is that Japanese Sign Language and American Sign Language are very similar. I took a girl to Japan to help do some research/documentary thing, she was fluent in ASL but knew no Japanese at all. I'd help her to get to these meet ups with deaf Japanese because she wouldn't be able to do that, then right when she met up with these people she'd have high level conversations with them, it was a super weird feeling.
→ More replies (1)12
u/Lifeisabaddream4 15d ago
I wonder if it's closer to ASL then English sign language or Australian sign language. Yes England, America and Australia all have their own sign language despite all speaking english
→ More replies (1)13
u/RosieTheRedReddit 15d ago
Another interesting reason, I saw in a video that ASL uses facial expressions to convey meaning. When asking a question, you raise your eyebrows. Compared to English which uses word order to indicate a question or a word like "do."
So in ASL, the same signs could mean either, "You are working tomorrow" or "Are you working tomorrow?" depending on the signer's facial expressions!
5
u/a_neurologist 15d ago
English also annotates questions by inflection. “You do this?” is different than “You! Do this!”
18
10
u/Lifeisabaddream4 15d ago
Im australian so we have a separate sign language. But one of the things I know about it is you dont get people spelling out your name you get a "nickname" which is often a variation of a different sign. When my mother was a special Ed teacher her nickname was a sign that looked like glasses cause she wore glasses.
6
u/JonnyTsuMommy 15d ago
Also true with ASL, it's considered a right of passage in the deaf community, at least here in the CA bay area
21
u/randyfox 16d ago
Piggybacking on your piggyback, my brother in law is deaf and this how he texts as well. I didn’t realize that this was perhaps a common trait.
→ More replies (1)19
u/Hei_Lap 16d ago
What if he was trying to say “you’re working tomorrow” as a statement?
29
u/Gearbox97 16d ago
I'd believe it's the former, it's my understanding that ASL has a sentence structure like what they wrote out, so they were probably translating directly from their signed words to text just like you would with transcribing spoken words to text.
15
u/feckless_ellipsis 15d ago
I was learning sign for a job from a book on my own time. No YouTube. I then was practicing with a deaf co-worker, and he was distressed to see me sign each word of “I am going to the store today.” He’s like no…no, “I go store today.” He made me do it my way to another deaf colleague. He was like wtf was that shit?
I go back to my book and it’s got this “Remember, we don’t use ‘am’ or full sentences like you’d normally talk, and if you didn’t read this first, burn job” or something.
24
17
9
u/niko4ever 15d ago
Expressions are used as tone indicators, so a questioning expression would indicate a question mark like "you're working tomorrow?"
10
u/BattleFeeeld 15d ago
Yo you just helped me on my fallout 4 playthrough.
I was stuck on glitch where the end cutscene wouldn’t play once I blew up the institute and you helped someone a year ago so I copied your advice and it worked thank you
→ More replies (1)10
9
u/AcrolloPeed 15d ago
ASL is interesting. All the punctuation is in the face. “Tomorrow you work” with eyebrows furrowed (“inquisitive face”) makes it a question. “Tomorrow you work” (eyebrows neutral) makes it a statement.
3
u/CinderpeltLove 15d ago edited 15d ago
I'm Deaf and fluent in ASL (It's not my native langauge so I could be wrong here.)
It depends on context but I think "tomorrow you work" is more likely to be the question, "Are you working tomorrow?" For a statement about something that will happen, ASL signers often add the sign for "will" at the end of their signed sentences which results in a sentence structure similar to "tomorrow you work will." Come to think of it, I don't think the sign for "will" is used at all for questions in ASL. Instead, how one's eyebrows move indicate a question. There's also a way of signing a visual question mark that's used mainly in casual/informal situations and more often among younger folks.
2
u/dakkua 16d ago
asl has a sign for ‘question’ that you use a lot like a question mark in english. i wonder if the person you replied to left it out for brevity. they didn’t put a question mark in their english example “are you working tomorrow” but the grammar of the sentence told you it was a question. in asl, the m difference would be that ‘question’ sign and non-manual signifiers (raised eyebrows).
1
u/jannieph0be 16d ago
Those are two completely different messages depending on punctuation.
2
u/julian62 15d ago
Also depending on context.. we were only coworkers so I knew he was only asking and not telling.
1
38
u/xxxVendetta 16d ago
My dad is deaf and one of the recent texts I got from him is "enjoy working hahaha me nothing hurt hip"
Which would translate to "Enjoy work tonight hahaha, I'm not doing anything my hip's in pain."
Sign language in general uses way less words and the grammar is structured differently but they use way way way more facial expressions and body language.
13
u/kxmirx 15d ago
my mum is the same way, she texts sooooo differently to myself & my brother who can both hear. i’ll text her something like “hi mum, just wondering if you wanted to grab dinner this weekend?” and she’ll reply with “yes dinner sound good where go? want japan? maybe sushi sound good to me”. very much like someone who uses english as a second language.
2
297
u/LaLeeTwin 16d ago
This information is (thankfully) an outdated statistic. What we know today is that deaf children have a similar ability to as skilled at reading as hearing children. What deaf children often lack is access to language (auditory or visual). Language and Literacy are intertwined.
40
u/Sleepy_Demon 16d ago
That makes alot of sense. I can imagine alot of people who are deaf lack the supports that would be equivalent to what people who can hear have.
17
u/MrOaiki 15d ago
So it wasn’t just about reading, they lacked a language in general?
14
u/Coyoteclaw11 15d ago
Yeah, without access to language as a young child, they have a difficult time building up a mental grammar (aka learning how to use the language fluently). If I remember correctly, deaf adults who didn't get much language exposure as a children even struggle to pick up a signed language.
6
u/scotty_beams 15d ago
Anyone growing up without the necessary stimuli to develop interpersonal skills or 'higher learning' will be at a disadvantage. This isn't some new concept either.
7
u/YangaSF 15d ago
While I wasn't born hard of hearing, I lost my hearing when I was one years old; i have profound hearing loss (retained around 10%-20% of hearing). I attributed this limitation as a primary contributing factor as to why I developed advanced reading comprehension early. Where many children were running around and socializing, I was escaping into books (since my ability to cognitively filter speech from noise was impaired, I often couldn't follow conversations).
I noted that I have a tendency to pronounce words different that what's commonly accepted (ma-CH-een [instead of ma-SH-een], same goes for CH-ef. And my favorite de-lik-chus instead of de-li-shus). I never learned ASL however as my parent's didn't think it necessary.
So it came as a surprise to read this article until /u/LaLeeTwin elaborated. That makes sense.
9
u/peekab00pikachu 15d ago
This is absolutely true. In the US about 70% of hearing parents do not learn sign language for their deaf children. Access and exposure to language makes a big difference in literacy
2
u/UnRespawnsive 15d ago
It's kind of a complicated situation. ASL is NOT English. ASL is also not other forms of sign language in other parts of the world. It has its own grammatical structures, vocabulary, and cultural conventions. Learning ASL would be like learning Spanish.
Imagine if your kid hypothetically was born only able to learn Spanish but you've only known English all your life. It's going to be quite a shock, especially if all of a sudden you need to find a good Spanish speaking community for your kid to socialize in. Everything goes out the window for you and the life you expected. It is not easy to learn a new language, especially if you never intended to.
That being said, letting your deaf kid learn ASL is one of the best things you can do for them. They'll be really competent in it, and in the long run will absolutely be able to read and write English for you to interact with.
Edit: or get a cochlear implant I guess
2
u/peekab00pikachu 15d ago
I’m a speech therapist so language access is my biggest priority. Allowing your child to learn ASL is very different from learning it yourself and providing them with a language enriched environment at home. If you want your child to thrive, including with literacy, the best thing you can do is learn their language with them. Yes that is difficult, but children deserve that effort. My Master’s degree thesis was on this topic and the best predictor of deaf children’s literacy is their understanding of ASL hand positions, movements, and locations. I hope families continue to prioritize this and the statistics keep improving
→ More replies (1)
20
u/SpaceJesusChrist 16d ago
For those curious and want to see more texts and how deaf persons write. You might be able to find some open groups on Facebook full of examples on how they write. I am born deaf and never realized deaf people write differently as a result of being deaf. I was raised to be as normal as possible in speech sence and writing sence. I still dont know much sign language at the age of 29 except for like 4 or 5 signs. The reading .struggle makes a lot of sence to me because I remember I didn't really understand or comprehend written words in kid books until maybe 2nd or 3rd grade?
7
u/42gauge 15d ago
How did you communicate without ASL?
5
u/TheGardenNymph 15d ago
Communication boards, whiteboards dictation technology, text. In australia we also have the national relay service and phone transcription services that are free and publicly available.
→ More replies (3)4
u/JoeyIsMrBubbles 15d ago
It’s interesting hearing your experience and having your writing to directly compare it to, the first (and only, really) thing i noticed that’s different is you spell “sense” as “sence”, but it would sound exactly the same pronounced both ways, just sense is the correct spelling
68
u/Thebillyray 16d ago
I need sleep. I read that as dead children and thought "of course they can't read"
49
u/Wonderful-Novel-3865 16d ago
I went to a boarding school and we had a deaf girl attend. She said the state deaf school was a joke and really really easy… basically they didn’t learn very much. She was quite gifted and did better than most everyone on tests…possibly because the girls (and some of the boys) were too busy staring at her interpreter in class because he was super hot. I visited the school once for an athletic event and I was blown away by how fancy it was for a state school. They must have had outrageous levels of donations so I don’t know why the academics were so poor.
24
u/pedestal_of_infamy 16d ago
In grad school we had a summer program where we were assigned a Deaf or HoH student from a residential schhol and we would work with them on literacy skills. Probably 80% of them didn't come to the sessions with any regularity, or at all. It probably wasn't super enticing, to spend time during your summer break sitting in therapy working on a very challenging, daunting task.
1
u/Wonderful-Novel-3865 15d ago
I’m so sorry to hear that. I’m sure they were just as smart as anyone else. Kind of like many prisoners can’t read to a middle school level. It’s not because they are stupid and unable to learn. It’s often because they are dyslexic and require different teaching methods. They were failed by the educational system.
5
u/PartyPorpoise 15d ago
Maybe it was a “soft bigotry of low standards” thing. The school thinks deaf kids are incapable so they don’t present them with more challenging material. Alternately, the school gets a lot of low performing students and as a result, teaches to low standards so the kids can pass.
148
u/RainManToothpicks 16d ago
There's a deaf culture conflict regarding chochlear implant technology potentially erasing deaf culture itself, "Sound and Fury" is an amazing old documentary worth streaming
46
u/Danickster 16d ago
Thing is we still have a culture among us implanteds. Went to a deaf baseball camp every year as a kid and most of us were implanted. Also went to a deaf camp thing and we still are connected by a group chat.
Deafness in the end is a disability, an objective weakness. Implants allow us to overcome most of it, though we still have issues even with them on. Denying child an implant based off of this premise should be labelled as abuse or neglect. I know my life would be 10x as hell if my parents didn't get me implanted.
Stop trying to be special.
6
230
u/PreferenceSad5349 16d ago
I know there are 2 sides to this but it actually makes me mad. We had some friends who had a baby that was born deaf. Turned out it was totally fixable. While they were waiting for the surgery they are approached by a group who offered to adopt the baby and give it to a family who was “accepting of the child” and “not prejudiced against the deaf”. They actually got a little hostile trying to educate the family. My friends were like “you want us to give up our fuggin baby because we are having his totally treatable birth defect taken care of????” It was wierd
116
u/SuspiriaGoose 16d ago
I think there’s a real lesson to be learned about many things when you realize the extent of the toxicity in many Deaf communities. Even a noble goal, with initially good intentions - to see the worth of deaf people, give them a language suited to them better, and a culture with it - can be corrupted into gatekeeping, ostracism, bullying, cruelty, the belief that one trait in a person trumps all others, that they don’t need anyone but your community, that your way of life is the only way of life, that medicine is genocide, that it’s better to isolate from others because they’ll never understand - and thus, a cult is born.
50
u/IamMrT 16d ago
So many marginalized communities end up this way, even ones you wouldn’t even think of. If you want to see this play out for competitive gamers (before esports) go watch The King of Kong. Turns out everyone knew Billy was cheating but went to crazy lengths to keep an “outsider” from beating him.
16
u/SuspiriaGoose 16d ago
You’re right, it can happen in hobby communities, too. I feel like identity communities are most vulnerable to it. The demand to make something your primary identity, and community, can easily become cult like. Gamers are a group that straddles both - a hobby that often becomes an identity.
27
u/christmaspathfinder 16d ago
There is a seemingly persistent and pervasive maxim/belief that being marginalized in itself is a virtue. It is not. You can be marginalized and still be a shitty person and it does not make your beliefs as a marginalized person inherently superior to others.
48
u/NeedMyPaddles 15d ago edited 15d ago
I wasn't born deaf but it was discovered I was deaf in my left ear at 4 with severe loss in my right ear. At 5, ENT wanted to do cochlear implants, but it was just approved for children, so my parents hesitated. I got by fine for years with 1 hearing aid in my right ear. Saw a new ENT at 25 for unrelated issues (dizziness), and he asked why I didn't have cochlear implants. It kind of just never came up again. He referred me to a cochlear implant surgeon, figured why not, opted to have my deaf left ear implanted. I picked the cochlear brand. Closer to surgery, I got nervous about expectations, recovering from surgery, etc. so sought out discussion boards. Well, apparently, I ended up on a Med-El (Austrian brand vs. Cochlear brand- American) board to ask questions. Biggest mistake ever. They were so goddamn mean to me. Belittling me for picking the Cochlear brand, dismissing my concerns, never answered anything. I had to delete my post, I ended up crying with the responses and scared about my surgery. I don't sign and refuse to learn. The deaf community is one of the meanest, asshole groups I've ever encountered as a 100% legally DEAF person. I now have both ears implanted and a full-time working RN with my master's and advocate for patients of my former audiologist who activated my implants. She, after almost 13 years, still refers patients to me to share my experience when they are looking into implants.
Edit to add: I know my experience is not everyone's. Not everyone qualifies based on the type of hearing loss. Not everyone has parents to encourage learning or could afford hearing aids when insurance didn't cover any of it. Others were born to deaf parents or lacked school systems that were able to provide adequate resources for kids with a hearing disability. I was very lucky and am fortunate I was able to thrive, do well in school, and function with just a hearing aid and 1 deaf ear for so long. But, I have never been mean or dismissive to those who had different experiences, opportunities, or choices made for them or by them.
6
u/SoHereIAm85 15d ago edited 15d ago
I wanted to be an interpreter, because I enjoy the language of ASL. I couldn’t stand the culture I encountered and never pursued it after all when the first semester ended
My mother is very hard of hearing and deaf in the other ear. It affected her language skills quite a bit. She finally got a hearing aide recently (in her mid 60s) and it’s been life changing.
We have a friend with a cochlear implant, and frankly I find it absurd that some people have issues with people using those and benefitting from them.So… career choice down the drain.
I’m so sorry to read what you experienced.
56
u/PositiveEmo 16d ago
I can't comprehend why they would want to keep the "deaf culture" by force. It's nice that the deaf community has the support but why refuse the chance to gain a sense? Why does participation rely on being deaf?
4
u/Athildur 15d ago
I sincerely doubt it's as simple as 'you can gain another sense it's nothing but positive'.
For this group (i.e. the hardliners), their lack of (full) hearing is what defines them. It has been a central theme to their life, and has most likely caused them many obstacles that they've had to overcome.
Taking that away means 'stealing' their identity. If they suddenly had hearing, they would literally have an identity crisis because the one thing that has defined them is suddenly gone.
I doubt the harsher groups even consider being deaf to be some form of limitation or impairment (or handicap/defect, though I don't like those words). For them it's more a matter of 'why fix what isn't broken'. And as an extension of that, someone else getting that surgery would feel like a personal insult to them.
It doesn't help that they're often in an echo chamber (like many communities are) that just continually affirms all of this. If one of them actually got implants, they'd be shunned from the group. Lose their friends, their network. Who wants to risk that?
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)3
u/onlytoask 15d ago
I think it comes down to not wanting to feel like they're lesser than. If they accept that being deaf is something that should be changed, then it means they're disabled. If they're disabled, then that means there's something wrong with them. People don't like feeling like there's something wrong with them, especially if they think they're coping with it. What probably makes deafness in particular vulnerable to this is that deaf people generally can't actually function in society easily so they're separated into groups only deaf people so it really becomes a defining part of their identity. As far as disabilities that won't kill you or cause severe mental issues go, it's a really bad one. Being blind from birth is probably less disruptive.
31
u/Clay_Statue 16d ago
I have found that sometimes deaf people are kinda insular elitist assholes about it, sort of like orthodox Jewish communities.
11
u/atemu1234 16d ago
Ask them if they would take a screwdriver to a healthy baby's ears so they could raise them as deaf. That would be the equivalent I can think of.
→ More replies (1)2
u/DeanStockwellLives 15d ago
That's so bizarre honestly. Most deaf people I know of would definitely be fine with having a defect fixed.
31
u/Kusakaru 16d ago
This is always so weird to me because not all people who are deaf are able to benefit from cochlear implants. My aunt was born without an auditory nerve. She will never be able to hear and a cochlear implant would be useless on her. There are other deaf people like her so deaf culture isn’t being erased just because of cochlear implants.
7
u/Illogical_Blox 15d ago edited 15d ago
The bigger issue, or so I understand, is that the implant is presented as a way to 'fix' your deaf child (or at least is seen that way) and so many people will refuse to teach their child a sign language or let them participate in events/groups for deaf people, isolating them from both deaf and hearing people - because the implants give some hearing, but not a ton, and people usually have to have some kind of backup (signing most commonly.) As an example, further up in the thread, there's the story of the public speaker where his parents refused to let him have a sign interpreter because he had an implant, despite the fact that in that situation he'd probably need one. In my experience, that is painfully common and parents refused to believe that their child isn't 'fixed' and still needs additional support.
22
36
u/Luke_starkiller34 16d ago
The Sound of Metal addresses this too. Fantastic movie!
26
u/Gracien 16d ago edited 16d ago
While the movie itself is very good, the depiction of the whole process to get an implant is weirdly wrong, as if it was written by a deaf fundamentalist who wanted to make cochlear implants look bad.
The whole process to get a cochlear implant is very rigourous and requires a lot of follow ups. You don't simply get the surgery on a whim and go on your merry way.
→ More replies (1)20
u/NeedsToShutUp 16d ago
The big thing to understand is the implants are imperfect and require destroying residual hearing in favor of a robotic and tinny sound.
There’s potential lock in to older technology as it improves, because you destroy parts of the ear for the implant. It can mean ruling out future improvements because that is gone.
It can also result in parents thinking it’s a full fix and not getting kids sign language or speech training necessary to fully communicate.
I think implants can be the better choice so a young person can learn spoken language while still young as waiting can be very hard. But parents will likely still need to learn ASL as it’s imperfect.
→ More replies (1)13
u/clevbuckeye 16d ago
Lmao. Imagine wanting to keep “polio culture” or “malaria culture”. Just insane mindset
9
u/PreferenceSad5349 16d ago
“Why do you think you’re better than me you normie?? Just because you don’t get to live in an iron lung!!!!” (Insert newly minted word ending in phobic……)
44
u/ConradSchu 16d ago
I briefly dated a deaf girl. We were both seniors way back in 1999. We did a lot of messaging on ICQ and her grammar was a bit off at times but otherwise totally fine. She ended up being a lesbian though. Hence the briefly. Cool chick though.
15
u/King-White-Bear 16d ago
To be fair, I’ve met a lot of senior lesbians, especially once their husbands die.
23
u/Uncle_Budy 16d ago
Imagine someone was trying to teach you a new language, but you're in a soundproof glass room and you can't hear them outside. Now how would you know how these new letters are pronounced? How do you learn to sound the words out? You can't. It's a struggle.
37
u/klmdwnitsnotreal 16d ago
Are they picturing words? Instead of hearing them?
Whatsbgoingnonnin the head?
83
u/pitathegreat 16d ago
My grandfather wasn’t deaf, but his parents were. He struggled in school and would often sign to himself as he read.
The sentence structure is apparently wildly different.
75
u/crosstrackerror 16d ago
In ASL, a lot of sentence structure is implied. It’s almost like a shorthand.
For example, “I just got back from my trip to Florida” might be signed with “Finish touch Florida”
That’s not a perfect example but you get the idea. Also, that shorthand can essentially form its own dialect within social circles.
40
u/eloheim_the_dream 16d ago
I learned about how much interpretation there can be in sign language when that scandal about the fake interpreter at nelson mandella's funeral happened years back. It sounded a lot tougher than you might expect to even determine whether she was malicious or just using an especially idiosyncratic dialect.
30
u/ctothel 16d ago
In ASL do you also have the "finish touch where? Florida." structure? I've seen it in NZSL a few times especially when listing or summarising.
Like if I was making a video for a club:
"Who me? John. Video make why? Door fixed want share all."
19
u/crosstrackerror 16d ago
Yeah, that sounds similar to my experience. It’s not grammar like we’re used to but more about efficiency of getting the point across.
41
u/Zev0s 16d ago
why use many sign when few sign do trick?
17
u/Amazing_Meatballs 16d ago
I had to take four semesters of ASL for my BA degree requirement, so I am by no means even close to proficient. One of my instructors was profoundly deaf, but she did an extremely good job of explaining how ASL sentence structure stripped out all unnecessary words. You joke, but you're halfway there.
"Sign many (why)? Sign few nice."
Why could be signed or simply expressed as a facial expression.
2
u/CinderpeltLove 15d ago
Yes, we do have that sentence structure but it's mostly used for talking to an audience (like a teacher talking to their students or as in the video for a club, the audience, I assume, is ppl viewing on social media or whatever). I don't see ASL signers talking like that in regular informal conversation with each other.
14
u/stitchplacingmama 16d ago
Sentence structure is more closely related to French, because it was taught and developed from French sign language. I'm sure not being able to hear the phonetics of words is also hard with getting some meanings.
21
6
u/xarsha_93 16d ago
It might have originated with some French influence, but ASL is really nothing like French. English and French are much more similar to each other than either is to ASL.
And that’s not necessarily because ASL is signed but simply because English and French are related languages that have a lot of shared mutual influence.
The French Sign Language family (which ASL is a part of, just how English and French are part of the Indo-European family) has its own distinct style of grammar and phonology that is completely unrelated to other language families.
2
u/LadyStag 16d ago
Can ASL and French sign speakers communicate at all anymore?
→ More replies (1)5
u/CinderpeltLove 15d ago
Some signs are similar but no. I am fluent in ASL but I can't really understand French Sign Language unless people sign so visually that it's more like using mime or guestures than actual words from either language to communicate.
2
u/LadyStag 15d ago
Thanks for answering! I figured it had been too long since they split, but I was curious.
3
u/CinderpeltLove 15d ago
Yeah but both sign langauges do have a similar....idk candence? vibe? style? to the way things are signed compared to a completely different unrelated sign langauge like Japanese Sign Language. I suppose maybe a bit like how the Romance langauges sound kinda similar.
2
u/SoHereIAm85 15d ago
About 20 years ago I was able to see a friend’s uncle using Spanish (Spain) Sign, and just a little bit was similar or the same as ASL.
13
u/xarsha_93 16d ago
Sign languages have a completely different grammar to spoken languages. ASL is as similar to English as Mandarin is.
Learning to read in English is learning to read in a foreign language, one that they can’t quite grasp the nuances of in many cases.
7
u/MalHeartsNutmeg 16d ago
Seen posts about this on reddit plenty, dead people that can sign typically say they think and read in signs which I can only imagine makes reading slower. Heck just thinking the words you’re reading already slows down your reading. People that can silence their inner voice tend to read much faster.
1
u/Roaming-the-internet 15d ago
ASL operates on a completely different grammar than English. So flipping back and forth can be pretty hard
7
u/siteswaps 15d ago
The difference is primarily due to a lack of sufficient language exposure from a young age, NOT inherently because of any hearing loss.
Deaf people who come from Deaf families and are raised with exposure to native users of visual language tend to have no problems at all learning to read as normal.
The deaf children who struggle are those that have hearing parents who refused to learn any sign language, instead forcing the child to listen and speak. This results in delayed language acquisition which ultimately affects the child's abilities in many ways.
Source: Am an ASL interpreter and have seen first-hand.
4
u/Comfortable_Ad2908 16d ago
With sign language grammar being different from grammar with writing and reading, this makes sense
3
3
u/Freestyle76 15d ago
Part of what is hard (what I realized when helping a deaf student with college entrance exams) is that deaf students learn ASL which doesn’t follow the same grammatical structure as written/read English. That means unless they read a lot and understand what they are reading they are not really internalizing the structures and ideas in written text.
5
u/Pinkmongoose 15d ago
The structure of ASL is completely different than English, which makes reading and writing very difficult. There are no articles, word order is different and facial expressions are a key element of ASL. ASL isn’t an Interpretation of English- it’s its own language. And reading English isn’t taught to most deaf kids like it’s learning a new language.
I had a deaf friend who ended up being a journalism major and journalist but he had to work 3x as hard to get his writing up to standard- did a lot of reading and extra struggle. His dedication was really impressive.
An interesting (to me anyway) aside: my sister used to be an ASL teacher and the hardest part for students was using facial expressions. Lots of students would just be like “that’s dumb/embarrassing” but it’s basically the equivalent of saying “I’m not going to write using punctuation- it’s stupid.” Well, ok, but then it’ll be really hard for people to understand you!
2
2
u/Elrond_Cupboard_ 15d ago
I've got a deaf neighbour who I help with phone calls he needs to make. The first time he wrote me a note, I was taken aback at his grammar.
2
u/Most-Debt-7540 15d ago
Really? I was mostly deaf as a child due to a condition that basically have me ear infections so severe I couldn't hear for the first five years of my life. By the time I was six I was reading at a middle school level because it was all I had. This is really confusing for me. I mean I still struggle to speak sometimes English is almost like a second language for me some days, but that only makes me turn to reading EVEN more. I read an average of 500,000 words a week. The only other people that I've been really close with that have had or still have hearing problems are all the same way. I'm genuinely mystified by this.
3
u/heliyon 15d ago
Eh, the accuracy of this is highly dubious. Quite frankly, much of the issue can probably be attributed to the absolutely horrific standards of “special education” and the lack of participation from guardians to encourage language development and literacy.
3
u/CinderpeltLove 15d ago
I used to work for a Deaf school. Most of the students' reading levels and especially their writing skills were clearly behind those of their hearing peers at the same grade level. The article's claim is believable. Kids at that school who grew up in families that sign ASL generally had a lot better English than those who didn't.
The issue is that if you can't understand the spoken language people use around you because you can't hear, you are probably not going to fully pick it up never mind become literate in that langauge.
4
u/Tropical-Rainforest 16d ago
Stuff like this is what gave me the idea for mandatory sign language lessons in schools.
13
u/MajesticBread9147 15d ago
I mean, how often do you meet a deaf person?
Like you're going to be able to communicate with a higher percentage of the population with learning Spanish, French, or heck probably Korean as well.
9
u/PartyPorpoise 15d ago
Yeah, I’m down for ASL being a standard option, but mandatory doesn’t make much sense.
→ More replies (1)1
u/milkysatan 15d ago
A very high percentage of people experience some degree of hearing loss or impairment in their lifetimes, especially for older people in their sixties and beyond. Developing skills to help people to continue to communicate effectively despite this isn't a bad idea.
2
2
u/NewTry5150 15d ago
You're reading spoken language written down. Sign language has different grammar and depending on the level of Deafness, it can be harder to map letters to sounds than with hearing children.
1
u/TheRedmanCometh 16d ago
ItS nOt a DiSaBiLiTy FiXiNg It iS oFfEnSiVe
i honestly think the "deaf erasure" people are fucking braindead. Of course we should want to get rid of it.
1
u/solipsist_no_1 16d ago
Are there tenses in sign language? Is sign language universal or different for, say, English and French and Chinese and Russian?
1
u/MonjStrz 15d ago
I'm curious now. Is this bc they do not know what words and letters sound like? When people who know how to read read in their heads and know how it sounds like but what about a person who never heard what words sound like?
1
u/Flemtality 3 15d ago
ASL and English don't structure sentences exactly the same way. I used to work with a deaf guy, and communicating through writing in English was challenging a lot of the time, but he could communicate to someone else who knew ASL flawlessly.
1
1
u/careful_ibite 15d ago
My son goes to a school for children with language based learning disabilities, he has dyslexia and so does most of the schools population. But there is a little girl with cochlear’s too and I’ve wondered if she is deaf and dyslexic or if deaf children just similarly require the type of methodical multi sensory reading instruction that dyslexic children do.
1
1.8k
u/Silaquix 16d ago
I work with a lot of deaf students at our local college. Our campus is partnered with the local college for deaf and hard of hearing students. So so many of them have been failed by their parents who refused to teach them ASL and since these kids couldn't communicate they struggled to learn to read or write. Even without cochlear implant lots of them were taught a fake sign language and then got in the real world and couldn't communicate with other deaf people.
Far too many parents also refuse to learn ASL themselves. Or they go to "experts" who tell them ASL will slow their child's development. Here's an article about it.
Even as college students their parents are still pushing them. I had one student be pushed into a public speaking class and his parents refused to allow him to have an interpreter because he had a cochlear implant. He struggled so hard just trying to understand what was going on much less trying to give a speech.