Sign This! Blaming ASL for a Crime It Did Not Commit

I’m called many names. Some flattering and some not. We won’t discuss that here because DeafNation must maintain an image as a decent publication. However, for those interested, the name given me by my mother is the one associated with this column. With that being said, let’s proceed to my first editorial.

Not long ago the following was presented to me for a response:

“There was something in another forum which troubled me; somebody was reviewing the many options available for deaf children… she was very objective and informative when discussing sign language, oralism, mainstreaming, technological devices, Deaf Culture, etc. However… there was one statement which threw me off. After discussion on how pre-lingually deaf children benefit from the accessible environment of ASL, she mentioned that one of the drawbacks of this option was that children who use ASL tend to lack English skills. She cited the fact that many pre-lingually deaf adults read/write at the fourth grade level. This statistic might be true, but…”

My reaction upon learning a bit more about the “objective “ and “informative” review is below:

All of these things she mentions lack a true coordinated effort to address the child’s actual needs as a combination of a lingual and cultural being and focus on single-minded pathological aspects of the child.

Thus are doomed to failure because they are personal agendas and not child-centered agendas.

First, “pre-lingual” is a hearing-centric term and perception, it should be pre-spoken language.”

“Pre-lingual” ignores ASL as first language for some Deaf children. Second, the statistic is basically factual and has been for many years. Mainstream schools are no better as anyone who cares to really look can see.

ASL is a drawback because it is not used formally as an instruction tool to “bring” the student to English proficiency. ASL advocates who don’t really understand this are guilty of the same sins as the manually coded English (MCE,) Oralists, and other audist factions.

Both run wholesale into a personal agenda without any real coordinated effort that tests, measures, tracks, and adjusts to student performance realities. For those who don’t know what an audist is, it’s a person who holds the philosophy that one is superior because they are hearing or behave in a hearing-like manner.

In blaming American Sign Language (ASL) for the poor English skills of students, ASL is accused of a crime it is not present to commit.

And it takes more than just signing ASL to “bring” the child to English proficiency. I once envisioned an idea that’s not new or nor exclusively mine. I was forbidden to pursue it due to audistic policies in the very schools for the Deaf in which I worked, of all places!

Do what? I wanted to formally teach ASL grammar to elementary school kids, then teach them to translate signed ASL into written English and written English into signed ASL, basically build translating skills.

Today, I’d like to do this but add SignWriting as a tool for teaching written ASL which would also be used in translation skills building.

Continue this through middle school, by high school we should see enhanced reading and writing skills.

Will it work? I don’t know, I and others were never allowed to do it because of audist agendas.

The Deaf you see today are the products of audism NOT ASL. So I say to audists, “Put the freaking blame at your own front door where it belongs and stop blaming ASL for your crimes against Deaf children.”

Programs must make a coordinated effort to use ASL in a formal and structured manner. It is an optical and manual bridge to English which is aural and oral, thus unique when it comes to language instruction and does not respond well to the total immersion approach for this reason.

But they won’t listen to us Deafies who are the products of their inefficient system and thus the real experts on how that system should be changed.

© James Womack, ASL Instructor