Deaf Gain: Why ASL is just as important to learn and be aware of as any other language.

My findings on why American Sign Language (ASL) is valuable to all.

"Hello, my name is Rachael Wells. Tuesday-Wednesday, I work at a restaurant. At 6:00am, I get up, get dressed, and eat breakfast. At noon, I go to class. At 9:00pm, I finish my homework."

In 1992, Jefferey Bettger researched the ability of deaf signers and hearing signers in their face recognition skills. He found that both hearing and deaf signers had the same face recognition abilities and that the face recognition abilities of non signers are much less. I want to talk about the social aspect of signing in conjunction to this finding and the deaf panel that I attended back in April, 2019. Most people, when they have deaf children, want to “fix” their deafness, by implementing hearing aids and other devices. This may work for some, but not all. Signing is the best way to go for some deaf people because of the lack of bodily intervention. Signing is a very social language, as pointed out by Bettger when he discovered the face recognition abilities of signers. Other language speakers are able to socialize well verbally but they may not have the connection that singers do. Why? This is because signers have to observe the intricate expressions of all the people they communicate with. If everyone signed, we would not have the problem of always looking at our phones even when we’re talking to someone. The human connection would be a lot stronger than it is currently. If everyone was able to sign, people would acknowledge each other face to face, and people would therefore be able to connect better with the people they meet and spend time with.

This concept brings me to the stories I heard in the ASL panel of the young man who was pulled over and did not know what was happening and what he was waiting for because the officer was standing too far away for him to see that e was trying to talk to him. I also think of the story of the young woman who attends family gatherings and is often left out of conversations and the meaning behind her family’s actions in her presence. She sometimes felt that her family was laughing at her and not at something else. If all of her family members signed, or if they at least knew some sign language, they would know that she was not feeling great and they would have more of a heart to include her, by just observing her facial expressions and body language. Who knows, she couldn't even get someone to explain to her why they were laughing, because it needed up being too much work and they just wanted to have a good time. Overall, if all or most people signed, regardless of their hearing abilities, we would all connect much more than we are currently.