Have any of you tried Sign Language?

Post Reply New Topic

I know American Sign Language,and I was thinking about using just that for communication. When I talked to my psychologist about this,she said,"Oh,but you have so many wonderful opinions and you have such a unique way of thinking. I don't want you to be quiet,and neither does anyone else." Heh...I've had numerous people tell me that I am annoying,that I'm an emo,that I'm pathetic,and that I should go kill myself.


-SpaceCase

I learned ASL in my first year of college, but sadly I haven't used it over the last 8 years, so I've forgotten quite a bit of it.

I know macaton (what non verbal autistics people with angelmans syndrome use) but what is ASL or is it the american name for macaton

Solid,

Apparantly, makaton is used to augment the local language to compensate for deficiencies. ASL is a total replacement, and another language in itself!

ENGLISH, and apparantly makaton: "Have you been to new york?"
ASL(as I recall): "Touch you new york?"

Steve

This is based on what I recall about ASL, and read in wikipedia about makaton.

I think sign language is fascinating. Unfortunately I can get really good at knowing signs, but not sign language. ASL has a lot of facial expression. When talking to someone in ASL you are supposed to look at their facial expression as much as their hands. I cannot see people's faces. When I sign I also look at my hands and if I manage to do any of the facial expressions it is innapropriate or done incorrectly. But I am pretty good at memorizing signs.

I plan on talking an ASL class next year. I will talk to the teacher and tell her that when she grades me she needs to take into consideration that I have AS and can only do the signing part of the language and cannot look at people's faces, only their hands. I can sort of put things into ASL grammar but not very well. I don't know if that is related to AS or not. Anyone know if it is?

I love using sign language to talk when I feel people are too close or that they want to invade my space. If I sign they can't stand that close. Even though it's impossible to sign ASL and speak English at the same time, I sometimes talk English but sign key words.

Uhura

Most people, last I knew, said people should learn by age 8. Otherwise, fluency is lost. ASL and English definately have different grammer.

Steve

My brothers taking it for College, and i'm gonna learn.

Agreed that you won't have as good fluency as a CODA(child of deaf adult) just by going to classes, it doesn't mean you can't learn good enough to be an interpreter. You can be fluent, but you won't be as fluid and quick perhaps as compared to someone who's been doing as a child. My first sign teacher was a CODA and it's pretty amazing in that they have the qualities of hearing and deaf in one as far as the expressive capabilities.

An example of some of the expression needed to sign has to do with the eyebrows. Eyebrows up generally means yes/no question and down means you want a detailed answer. But stuff like that can be emulated with practice. Since you are focusing on the signers face when communicating you seen these kinds of details add to the meaning of the signs with the hands. If you can grasp the basics like that eyebrow thing, you might find that it's actually not that hard. Quite a bit of it is really logical, just like language in general. If it didn't have a logic to it, how could they write it down and teach it in school? Of course one's logic may not always make sense but...

I feel that although I can't read emotional expression very well when speaking to hearing people, that I can communicate at least "as well" with deaf people. In the very least, in some ways I felt I was doing a little better than when I speak. My Deaf teachers were very encouraging in the interpreter program. But maybe, it just was all the studying I did.. I felt a strong urge to out do all the "I wanna save the deaf people" group in my class...lol You see some of those in the interpreter programs. They seem to think that they can "save" people...or help them out of their pity .... >.< sort of irritating. lol, I always saw it as a job like any other, but perhaps that was my so called "lack of empathy". Somehow this unempathetic attitude actually helped me in some way. Deaf people don't want to be pitied, they don't usually think they abnormal... lol sorry, I'm ranting now...lol I loved the deaf culture class part at the program.

But anyhow, I took 2yrs of ASL and started the interpreter program. I ended up dropping out because of some financial and family problems but I highly recommend it to anyone interested. If you believe you have a good spacial/visual memory, you'd be really surprised how much in handy something like that comes. The ability to play back the signs in your head, recreating the spacial aspect and direction of movement of the hands proves to be pretty incredible in the replication of the movement. While taking the class, it becomes pretty clear the people who can't do this. They tend to drop parts of the movements, direction and the hand relationships to each other.