Did you know that “sign language” is not a ‘one size fits all’ language? To ensure optimal communication, it is important for service providers to question the sign language style that best fits the Deaf person. Sign Language Agencies often receive requests from service providers who are unaware of the differences. Many assume that all deaf people speak the same language. Many assume that sign language is the same around the world.

With this in mind, a summary of various sign language styles used in the U.S. might be helpful.

Signing Exact English (SEE) – Just like it says, this is a system that matches sign language to the exact English translation. In 1972, this was one of the first sign languages to be published. Imagine a visual counterpart to match written and spoken English. This method will include word endings (i.e.  ing, ed, ) not gestured in PSE or ASL.  Sentences are signed word for word in English.

American Sign Language (ASL) – This sign language employs hands, arms, head, facial expression and body language to facilitate total communicatoion. ASL is not the same as written or spoken English. American Sign Language features an entirely different vocabulary and grammar.  ASL was referred to as “Ameslan” in the 1960’s, but today it is simply called American Sign Language or ASL. In the United States, ASL is the most common sign language used among the Deaf. The syntax and grammar are distinct from other spoken languages, including English. When requesting an interpreter, this is most often the expected sign language unless specified otherwise.

Pidgin Signed English (PSE) – Best described as a combination of English and American Sign Language.  A simplified language derived from two or more languages is called a pidgin.  Culturally Deaf people, signing with each other, often use ASL, but many use a mixture of ASL and English. PSE is most frequently used by those who use spoken English as their primary language.

Cued Speech – Cued Speech is a system of communication used with and among deaf or hard of hearing people. It is a phonemic-based system which makes traditionally spoken languages accessible by using a small number of hand shapes to represent consonants in different locations near the mouth (representing vowels). Cued Speech serves as a supplement to lipreading. It is now used with people with a variety of language, speech, communication and learning needs. Cued Speech was created in 1966 by Dr. R. Orin Cornett at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.

Deaf / Blind – Remember ‘The Miracle Worker’? The story of Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan? Although Annie Sullivan was  legally blind, she connected with Helen Keller by fingerspelling into her hand. Once Helen made the connection between ‘the object’ and the fingerspelling, her world opened up and she began to learn a language with which to communicate. This method of signing into the hands of the Deaf / Blind is still used today.

As you may have guessed, this is a partial list….but probably the most common sign language styles requested. By far, ASL leads the pack and the majority of Deaf people we meet consider this their language.

Mary Anne

A Short Story:   Please, Ma’am, May I NOT Have Any More? 

Mary Anne Pugin

Warm milk, beans, and rhubarb.  We got those a lot at the Lutheran School for the Deaf, an oral school in Detroit, Michigan.  As an 11-year-old sixth grader, with a home and family in South Bend, Indiana, the Lutheran School was my first residential school away from home.   I was happy there, learning a lot in the classroom, but I did have a revelation shortly after arriving at the school.  I discovered that Mom’s cooking was to be appreciated.  Bless her heart, bless her soul…

Lord knows why, but the kitchen staff poured the milk into our glasses long before we sat down for lunch or dinner.  To “get it over with” is my best guess.  Sitting there for an hour or so, the milk would always turn warm.  I’ve just one word for warm milk — yuk.

To this day I cannot look at rhubarb and not have a fleeting flashback of the Lutheran School.  The school’s administrator, Dr. Klein, lived with his wife in a house on the campus.  His wife’s name was Mrs. Klein and I remember her as being a rather gruff woman.  She was a little hard to warm up to but she was a decent lady and did seem to like us kids.

Mrs. Klein had a garden.  I don’t remember what all she grew, but I do remember her rhubarb.  She would invite some of us older kids over to her garden to pick the rhubarb for her.  Much of what we picked ended up in the school’s kitchen.  We had a lot of rhubarb…a lot…very often.

To feed a mass, feed them beans.  We got beans a lot, too, and the kitchen served up these same beans all the time.  There was no creativity in that kitchen.  There was also no mercy from the housemothers.  We had to eat everything on our plate, whether we liked the mess on it or not.

I don’t know the name of this particular brownish lentil but it has a unique odor and a taste that I just couldn’t stomach.  To mask the taste, I would take big bites of bread, but that hardly helped.  Those beans made me sick every time.  You would think, well aware of my physical aversion to those beans, they would excuse me for not eating them.  No such luck.

Years later, as a graduate student, I visited a school for the deaf and we went to the cafeteria for lunch.  Approaching the line, I caught a very familiar and nauseating whiff.  They were serving those very same beans!  I had jello instead, and milk.  At least the milk was cold.

Mary Anne

A Short Story:      Surrounded by Animals…Sort Of 

At our request, Mary Anne continues to stroll down memory lane………. 

I attended the Indiana School for the Deaf for five years – 8^th grade through high school.  I had hearing and deaf teachers and all of my deaf teachers had graduated from Gallaudet University inWashington,D.C.  Little did we know back then that I would not only graduate from Gallaudet myself, but I would serve as the university’s Director of Alumni Relations.  I was fortunate to remain in touch with many of my deaf teachers and see them often at Gallaudet reunions and other events until they all, each and every one of them, passed away.

I’ve a story to share but with respect for the teacher in question I will refrain from using his name.  My fellow ISD schoolmates may figure him out and that’s fine.  I think my story will spark fond memories they may have of him as well.

He was my science teacher.  He taught Biology and Chemistry.  He wasn’t a classy dresser and he always had a disheveled look about him.  He also had poor balance and he would sway and stumble during class lectures.  We liked him and he could make us laugh a lot.  One day in class he told us a joke.  The joke, quite honestly, probably wasn’t appropriate for us teenagers, but at any rate I did learn that a sow is an adult female pig.

This old farmer picked up his sow and put her in a wheelbarrow.  He carted her over to the next farm and left her with a big ole male pig for a few hours.  The next morning, seeing that there were no piglets, the farmer put the sow back in the wheelbarrow and went back over to the other farm.  The next morning, and the next, and the next, as there were still no piglets, he carted the sow back to the other farm.  Come one morning, the farmer saw there weren’t any piglets and the sow was missing.  He looked all over for her and found her waiting for him – in the wheelbarrow.

When not attending classes in the main building, I spent most of my time in the dorm.  We had housemothers and nearly all of them were hearing.  Of the hearing housemothers in the high school wing, Mrs. Gates was my favorite.  She was short, stocky, and matronly and the only sign she knew was “bad,” which she used often when she thought you were being a bad girl.  The other hearing housemother was Miss Crump.  She was, compared to Mrs. Gates, a bit sterner and not as warm.  They both had private rooms at the end of the wing and if the door was open, we girls would often peek into the room and check out their personal furniture and photographs.

One day I was talking with some of the other girls in the hall and didn’t notice that Miss Crump was approaching.  She was heading down the hall and at the precise moment that she was directly behind me, I inadvertently took a step back.  She stumbled and nearly fell to the floor.  Catching herself she glared at me – never mind that my eyes and mouth were wide open in shock and surprise – and said “Son of a _____!”  I had seen that term several times before but didn’t know what “_____” meant.  So I looked it up in my dictionary and learned that a bitch is a female dog.  Not long after that incident, seeing that Miss Crump’s door was open, and knowing that she was in her room, I walked by and barked.  Miss Crump came rushing right out of her room, confronted me and asked if I had just barked at her.

I lied of course.

Bill Pugin & Paul McCartney

American Sign Language is definitely a hot topic following the release of the “My Valentine” videos. One performed by Johnny Depp, another by Natalie Portman, and a third blending them together.

The response to these videos has been overwhelmingly positive. The song itself is typical Paul McCartney … simple and beautiful lyrics combined with a melody that refuses to leave your head once you’ve heard it.

Many people are unaware that Paul provides a sign language interpreter when he performs. He also provides seats at no cost for blind members of his audience. These are seats with poor visibility regarding the stage. How many artists consider this kind of inclusion when planning their concerts? Sir Paul is one.

For these and many other reasons, The Sign Language Company is excited, proud and honored to have participated in this event. All of this came together in one incredible day. Paul was inspired by a suggestion from his daughter Stella. Johnny and Natalie agreed to perform in a language which is unique and visually stunning. The day was long and many takes were considered in an effort to gain the final artistic expression desired by Paul.  While Johnny was busy with his own projects, in one day he was able to learn the lyrics, learn the sign language, and learn the guitar solo played by Eric Clapton in the original recording. And while it’s difficult to be objective, we see Natalie Portman’s rendition as graceful and hypnotic. She signs as if she has been using sign language for years. Understated and elegant. The blended video is beyond what we could have imagined.

These videos were released and immediately the buzz began. Sign Language and ASL (American Sign Language) are ‘in the news’. Many were confused –  unaware that British Sign Language is completely different from American Sign Language.  Like any language, it varies from region to region and country to country.  ASL is a ‘living’ language which evolves on its own….conveying a message and drawing pictures with gestures.  There is NOT a sign for every word in the English language. This is why we refer to ‘Sign Language Interpreters’ instead of ‘Sign Language Translators’.  ”Interpretation” is the keyword. A gesture is used to convey the message in a particular context. Gestures vary among ASL users, but with lip movement and body language, the message is clear. This is understood by the deaf community and those affiliated in some way with the deaf, but sometimes misunderstood by others.

We are excited to share information regarding this wonderful experience. The Sign Language Company is recognized for our work in the entertainment arena, but this project was an exceptional highlight. Please contact us if we can answer any questions you may have regarding the beauty of sign language as artistic expression.

So to clarify, let’s include a few cities in our own backyard where we’ve provided sign language interpreters.

San Diego, Orange, Riverside, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Ventura, and Santa Barbara and the Bay Area counties of Alameda, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Solano, Napa, and Sonoma. Palm Springs, Chula Vista, Fallbrook, Bonsall, Temecula, Murrieta, Hemet, Blythe, Banning, Coachella, Pasadena, Pomona, Santa Clarita, Burbank, San Jacinto, Sun City, Riverside, Moreno Valley, Rancho Cucamonga, Mission Viejo, Laguna Beach, Irvine, Anaheim, Downey, Long Beach, Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, North Hollywood, Van Nuys, Tarzana, Northridge, San Fernando, Palmdale, Victorville, San Bernardino, Fontana, Menifee, Lake Elsinore, Ontario, Carlsbad, Escondido, Poway, San Marcos, Oceanside, Del Mar, Coronado, Santee, Santa Ana, Fullerton, Corona, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Seal Beach, and Westminister, San Francisco, Fremont, Pleasanton, Berkeley, Cupertino, Palo Alto, Livermore, Menlo Park, Milpitas, Mountain View, Novato, Oakland, Redwood City, San Jose, San Leandro, San Mateo, Santa Clara, San Ramon, Sausalito, Sebastopol, Walnut Creek, and the San Fernando Valley.

This is obviously a short list of our closest neighbors, but you get the idea.

We’ve traveled to China, Europe, South Africa, Australia, Canada and to Hawaii as often as we can. If we can cover the needs of these places, chances are we can accommodate you as well.

While this blog posting sound more like a commercial for The Sign Language Company, we DO get this question a lot, so we thought it might be time to put an answer in writing. Any additional questions we can answer here?  Let us know!

Written by:   Mary Anne Pugin

Mary Anne Pugin

~Mary Anne continues her series of stories reflecting upon ‘growing up as a deaf child’ in the 1950′s and 1960′s~

“Don-n-n-n,” I said.  “No, no – dol-l-l-l,” Miss Wright corrected.  It is so written in the October 6, 1955 article published by the Washington, D.C. Evening Star.  Mom clipped the article and glued it on a page in a photo album she made for me.  The picture accompanying the article shows five-year-old me sitting on a table facing Miss Wright.  She must have been my first speech teacher.  I’ve had several over the years but their faces have all become a blur.  I remember mostly mouths and teeth and a teacher with an unusual feature…a cleft lip I think it was.

Speech training for deaf children is a very tactile activity.  With your face just inches from the teacher’s, it’s also uncomfortably intimate.  The teacher is constantly putting your hand on her throat, her cheek, or on her nose.  All the better to feel the “mmmm,” the “nnnn,” and the “k-k-k” at the back of the throat.  She’ll have a mirror within reach and use that to make you look inside your own mouth to see for yourself how you’re supposed to mold your tongue this way for the “n” sound and that way for the “l” sound.  She’ll have an amazing tool at hand – a feather – and through constant repetitions, you learn how to release just enough puff of air for “b-b-b” and “p-p-p.”  Placing your hand on her cheek/throat and holding the feather under her nose, she’ll demonstrate for you that “b” is silent and “p” isn’t.  Or is it the other way around?

I have pretty good speech today, but that’s because I became deaf at around two years of age.  When I began speech training, my brain “remembered” the rules of articulation and I went from there.  Speech training, however, is every deaf child’s least favorite classroom activity.  Speech is not easy to master and this is especially true for children who were born deaf.  To make my point with hearing people, I ask them if they know how to speak Russian or Chinese or maybe Cherokee.  If they say no, I ask them why not.  The answer usually is, “Well, I’ve never been exposed to the language…”  In other words, they didn’t hear it to learn it.

We were a family of four living in a brick colonial in Arlington, Virginia– Mom, Dad, Welby, and me.  A month after I turned six, Evelyn joined the family.  Bill came along three days before my 8^th birthday.  He’s the only one in the family who wasn’t born in a state. Hawaii was a territory then.  But, back to Arlington, I attended first grade in a public school and rode the yellow school bus everyday to and from school.  I wore a hearing aid which, incredibly enough, was of similar dimensions as today’s mobile phones.  With the long, thin cord and the earpiece sticking out of your ear, it was generally a nuisance to wear.  Later I had two of those things, one for each ear.

I had a speech teacher at the school in Arlington.  She would show me picture cards and ask me to tell her what the pictures were.  She flashed a card during one session and I said “automobile.”  I’m pretty sure I said it all wrong though.  It was, after all, a four-syllable word.  That afternoon, heading out to the school bus, I was surprised to see my Dad waiting for me.  He was all decked out in his Navy tans (to this day, I love seeing a man – and a woman – in uniform!) and had a big smile for me.  We went to see my speech teacher.  She sat me down and asked me what the picture was on the card she was holding.  I said “car.”  She kept asking and I kept insisting it was a car.

As I grew older my speech continued to improve.  My teachers focused more on my voice and taught me about inflection and intonation.  As a sixth grader at the Lutheran School for the Deaf (an oral school in Detroit, Michigan), I was always one of two or three students picked to give speech and lipreading demonstrations.  Except for having to dress up in my Sunday best, those outings were fun — I got to leave school and go for a car ride and there was the anticipation of cookies and punch afterwards.  The demonstrations, usually held at some women’s club or in a church basement, were to showcase the school’s success in teaching its students through the oral method.  As I think back on this, the school really took liberties with their claims.  I was a new girl at the school that year and, as such, I was not a bona fide product of their “successful” speech and lipreading program.  Additionally, there were three smart boys in my class but they were never picked because their speech sucked.  The message seemed to infer that speech and lipreading were more important than how smart you were.

During one such demonstration, a fifth grade girl and I were told to stand side by side and sing a few lines of “Onward Christian Soldiers.”  We were excited about doing that because that particular demonstration was being televised by the local news.  At some point later, back at home in South Bend, I learned from my older brother that my “s” sounded like “sh.”  So, here I was singing –

Onward, Christian sholdiersh, marching ash to war,

With the crosh of Jeshush going on before.

I spent my high school years at the Indiana School for the Deaf.  My junior class rehearsed long and hard for a play we were putting on.  The play, which was directed by our deaf literature teacher, was “A Christmas Carol,” and it was presented in sign language.  I was part of the cast as the voice interpreter.  I practiced long and hard along with the others, sitting off to the side and voicing all the lines from Scrooge, the Christmas Ghosts, and the other characters.  The one thing I did not bother to do was practice with my speech teacher.  I got accolades after the play, but one teacher, himself deaf, told me that his niece cracked up at the way I said a word and he wanted me to learn the proper way to say it.  In addition to the speech lesson I got from him, I also learned that I should never assume words are pronounced the way they are spelled.

As a young man, Scrooge had a girlfriend and her name was Belle.  The scene in the play called for Scrooge to approach Belle at a dance and speak to her.  She gets upset at something he says, turns and runs out crying.  Alarmed and upset himself, Scrooge desperately calls out to her, fingerspelling “Belle!  Belle!”  With all the anguish I could muster in my voice, I yelled “Belly!  Belly!”  I can only imagine stifled laughter I must have invoked for other lines I may have read, such as “Hello, Belly.  I am sho happy to shee you.  May I shit down with you, my dear Belly?”

These days, when I’m confronted with a word like “hippopotamus,” which has five syllables, I have to pause and mentally separate those syllables before I say the word.  Fortunately, “hippopotamus” is not in my daily vocabulary.  I’m happy too that “hippo” is an acceptable substitute.  Long words notwithstanding, one syllable words give me grief, too.  Today, at age 61, I have abandoned all attempts to try to remember if the word “tow” is pronounced like “toe” or “now.”  Every time I get a quizzical look from somebody when I say the word, I know immediately to repeat it the other way.

Well, I hope thish shtory about shpeech training wash mosht informative for you.

Guest Blogger : Mary Anne Pugin

Mary Anne Pugin

I had two kinds of teachers while growing up – those who knew how to communicate with me and teach me, and those who didn’t.  It was like day and night.  It really was.

I attended several different public schools from age four to eleven.  That’s seven school years – nursery school, kindergarten, first, second, third, fourth, and fifth grades.  For the duration of one school year, I was in the 5^th grade at three different schools in three different cities.  Not counting my speech teachers, I had over 10 teachers, maybe 15, from within the public school system.

At my last public school –James Madison Elementary School in South Bend,Indiana– they had a revolving system and I had a different teacher for each subject.  That was a nightmare!  The teachers talked to the blackboards, I couldn’t follow class discussions, I didn’t know what my homework assignments were, I couldn’t understand the difference between “tune” and “tone” in music class.  That’s right, one of my subjects was music.  I think I got a “D” in that class, probably for “effort.”  One thing was clear – I was totally lost and confused…every day.

My analytical mind today suggests that these teachers, many of whom really did try their best, were simply ignorant, misinformed, and untrained in deaf education.  I was, more likely than not, their first deaf student.  Additionally, it was also the ‘50s, a time when deaf people were perceived as helpless or inferior and the term “deaf and dumb,” now archaic, was acceptable in print and spoken language.

My earliest recollection of school is kindergarten, in Arlington,Virginia. Our classroom priorities were to play, eat lunch, nap, and learn…in that order.  I remember the semi-circle of small chairs.  I remember looking at the teacher and at the book she was holding and watching her mouth move.  I remember one day –

– I was sitting on my chair in that semi-circle and my attention strayed.  That happened quite often, a lot, actually.  Posted on the wall in front of me were drawings the other kids and I had done.  I looked at one drawing and if I liked it, I smiled.  If I liked the next drawing, I smiled.  If I didn’t, I made a face.  The teacher caught me doing that.  She scolded me and told me to pay attention to her.  At five years old, that was hard to do.  To sit there and not understand anything was harder still.

Making faces.  As I grew up, I developed a tendency, as is true for most deaf people, to express myself through facial expressions and body language.  Since I didn’t quite have the speech or the vocabulary to verbally articulate my thoughts and feelings, I’d let my face and body do it for me.  Somehow, that got me in trouble with Mrs. Hargreaves, my 5^th grade English and homeroom teacher at James Madison.  I don’t think Mrs. Hargreaves liked me very much.  She had 35 students in her classroom and I was apparently too much of a challenge.  She had an opportunity to release pent-up frustration one day and the memory is seared in my brain.

It was free-time in the classroom.  The kids were mingling and chatting up with each other.  Another girl and I were standing around talking with Mrs. Hargreaves.  I think I became too animated for Mrs. Hargreaves.  I think I displayed a facial expression she didn’t like.  I think Mrs. Hargreaves may have been perimenopausal at the time.  She glared at me, pointed to the door and let loose a stream of words.  Everything seemed to stop.  I was stunned and slow on the uptake but eventually understood she was telling me to leave the classroom.

I stood in the hall outside the door.  Many minutes passed.  Other kids paraded by.  Of course they glanced at me.  Of course they looked at me and whispered among themselves.  I was very confused and didn’t understand what had just happened.  I started to doubt myself.  What exactly did Mrs. Hargreaves tell me to do?  To stand here?  Go to the principal’s office?  What??  Then the door opened and she came right at me.  She grabbed the front of my blouse and shook me.  A button popped off.  She was angry, her face was red, her eyes bulged, her pretty face wasn’t pretty anymore, and she said a bunch of things, I have no idea what.  I was trembling when I returned to the classroom.  I didn’t do anything wrong but I still felt guilty and ashamed.  I could feel everybody’s eyes on me.  My feelings for Mrs. Hargreaves changed in a heartbeat from respect to apprehension and fear.  I think this incident happened towards the end of the school year.  At least I hope so because I simply cannot remember anything else afterwards.

School can be a fun place to be when you’re a young child.  There’s stuff to play with, inside the classroom and out in the playground.  There are crayons and colored paper and paste to get all messed up in.  The playing field is level for everybody and the other kids aren’t judgmental.  That comfort zone became less so when I went through second, third, and fourth grades at the Barber’s Point Elementary School in Oahu, Hawaii.  Learning became more complicated and I struggled more, mostly with arithmetic.

I have happy and positive memories of Miss Thompson, my 4th grade teacher.  She was young, she was very pretty, and she smiled all the time.  She was very patient with me, and attentive, but I was frequently at a disadvantage in her classroom.  Class discussions were more participatory, except for me, and I made mistakes on my spelling tests because I didn’t correctly lipread the words that Miss Thompson called out.  During one such test, I kept asking her to repeat the word she just spoke.  When I still couldn’t get it, one boy came forward and started to pantomime.  Several kids and several pantomimes later, I finally got the word – “beg.”  Miss Thompson was wise, allowing this to become an impromptu and fun class activity.  Everybody laughed at the pantomimes, including me.  I like to think that this memory is as vivid to those classmates today as it is for me.

I nearly flunked 5^th grade.  It didn’t help, it truly didn’t, that I changed schools three times for that grade.  Mom and Dad meant well — they only wanted the best for me.  But I was sinking, I wasn’t learning, I was depressed and had very low self esteem.  I would head for my room when I got home from school.  I tried not to cry but Mom and Dad, they knew their baby girl.  I had to change schools, again.

Not to be melodramatic, but the Lutheran School for the Deaf in Detroit, Michigan was my salvation.  And Miss Szajna, my 6^th grade teacher, was the angel I needed.  Sign language wasn’t allowed in the classroom, but Miss Szajna knew how to teach me.  She knew how to communicate with me.  She knew sign language, too, and didn’t hesitate to use it whenever we were stuck on something she was saying.  There were seven of us in that class.  It was perfect.  I got the one-on-one attention I sorely needed.  I had a lot of catching up to do.  When Miss Szajna was preparing to teach division, she discovered that I hadn’t yet learned how to multiply.  She gave the others a class assignment to work on and while they focused on that, she sat down with me, me alone, and proceeded to teach me multiplication.  She taught me many things.  She made learning fun.  Mrs. Hargreaves was all but forgotten.  I was learning and I was happy.

I liked Miss Szajna very much.  I also liked that her first name was Helen.  That’s my mother’s name.

Mary Anne Pugin

THE UNIVERSAL CLASSROOM

Guest Blogger: Mary Anne Pugin

Ask anybody, an adult or a child, to describe his or her classroom and you’ll probably find a lot of similarities in their replies.  From Maine to California, from Alaska to Alabama, from the USA to Uganda, classrooms generally look the same.

You’ve got your desks and your blackboards.  There might be a portrait of George Washington or the nation’s current president hanging on the wall.  There’s probably a globe in the corner and maybe even a flag nearby.  Maybe there’s a piano, maybe not.  One wall is likely to have windows, big ones possibly, if the classroom is in an old school building.  The other walls are likely to be plastered with instructional décor, such as the Aa-Bb-Cc alphabet.  The desks are organized in rows and the teachers, usually female, are a potpourri of ages, sizes, colors, hairdos, and temperaments.

As similar as classrooms are the world over, there are variables that do make one classroom different from another.  Private and public schools come to mind.  The more affluent the community, the better stocked or equipped the school’s classrooms will be.  Regardless of locale, there is one constant that exists in all classrooms, and has for eons — sound.

From birth, hearing people are surrounded by sound every day.  In the classroom, their brains are absorbing the sounds within that room and taking cues from them.  There’s rustling of paper, voices of the teacher and fellow classmates, the squeak of chalk on the blackboard, outside noises, a cough or a sneeze or a fart, announcements from the loudspeaker, whispers among young sweethearts or would be cheaters.  These sounds, these auditory learning cues, elude the deaf student.

I was born in 1950 and I’ve been deaf since around age two.  We were living in Santa Ana,California– Mom and me and my older brother, Welby.  My Navy Dad was in Korea at the time.  When I became deaf (either from illness or trauma), my mode of learning changed – from auditory to visual.  My behavior changed, too.  I have no recollections at all, but Mom noticed the change in me.  I didn’t answer the phone or the front door anymore, I didn’t sing or laugh along with Howdy Doody, my speech patterns became different.  When Dad’s ship returned to port in San Diego, Mom picked him up and they stopped to visit the Mission San Juan Capistrano.  There she told Dad I’d gone deaf.  He didn’t believe it.  Not until he arrived home, found me playing in the backyard, and called out my name.

My classroom experience was, simply put, quite daunting.  That one constant – sound – was no longer a part of my life.  Not only was I a little deaf girl, I was also a little Navy Brat.  Up until I was 10 years old, we moved several times and, as military kids will attest, you’re not only moving to a new house, you’re also moving to a new school.  From ages 4 to 11, I attended a series of public schools in Arlington [Virginia], Barbers Point Naval Air Station [Oahu], Pomona[California], and in Elkhart and South Bend,Indiana.

Dad retired from the Navy in 1960.  He got a civilian job and we moved from Hawaii to Pomona.  I started 5^th grade at the elementary school there.  It was still fall when we moved to Elkhart and I transferred to a 5^th grade class there.  I can barely remember either school.  I have better memories of playing tether ball at one of those schools, but that’s only because the ball hit me smack dab on the face one time.  That winter we moved to South Bend and I enrolled in my third 5^th grade class at the James Madison Elementary School.  Mom and Dad had heard that this school had an outstanding program for deaf children, which prompted the move from Elkhart to South Bend.  In reality, James Madison was the worst of the schools I had gone to.  I was miserable at that school and doing so poorly I nearly flunked 5^th grade.

Mom and Dad got wise and realized I needed to go to a school for deaf children.  In fall 1961, they enrolled me at the Lutheran School for the Deaf in Detroit, Michigan.  This was an oral school – sign language was not allowed in the classroom.  For the first time, I was in an environment with other kids who were just like me.  For the first time, I had a teacher, Miss Szajna, who knew exactly how to teach me.  I blossomed and did very well in my 6^th grade class.

The following year, I transferred – yet again – to the Indiana School for the Deaf in Indianapolis.  Sign language was the norm at this school, in the classrooms and in the dorms.  After some testing, they passed me over 7^th grade and placed me with the 8^th grade class.  I was 12 years old and one of three girls in a class with big 13-14 year old boys who had fuzz on their faces!  Getting past the initial intimidation, I did well and spent five very happy years at ISD.

I’m not an educator.  What I know about education, about “the classroom,” comes from personal experience.  Hearing people, because of that one constant in their own classroom experience, may not fully understand mine.

What was it like for me?  I’ve got stories.  I’ll share them…

((Mary Anne will be sharing her stories with us.  Questions? Please contact us for more information at The Sign Language Company))

Believe it or not, there is actually a profession out there for deaf sign language interpreters. Just like their hearing counterparts, they facilitate communication between a deaf and hearing person. How is this possible?

We composed an article recently to better explain this group of Certified Deaf Interpreters. There aren’t very many of them and they’re not very well known by hearing OR deaf people. We’re hoping to change that. How is it possible that a member of the deaf community can work as a sign language interpreter?  Click here to learn more.

So, without the ability to hear, what else can deaf people do?  Let’s take a walk through history and seek some answers to this question. According to Wikipedia……..

Helen Keller - (1880 – 1968) –  Most people are familiar with this name. An American author, activist and lecturer. She was the first deaf/blind person to graduate from college.

She was not born blind and deaf; it was not until nineteen months of age that she acquired an illness described by doctors as “an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain”, which could have possibly been scarlet fever or meningitis. The illness left her deaf and blind. Keller went on to become a world-famous speaker and author.

Thomas Edison - Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman who developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph and a long lasting light bulb. In school, the young Edison was noted to be terrible at mathematics, unable to focus, and had difficulty with words and speech. This ended Edison’s three months of official schooling. The cause of Edison’s deafness has been attributed to a bout of scarlet fever during childhood and recurring untreated middle ear infections.

Ludwig Van Beethoven - History tells us that – although Beethoven was completely deaf – he was able to compose and play extraordinary music. Today, he is recognized as one of the greatest musicians of all time. He had to turn and face his audience to experience the applause he was unable to hear.

Marlee Matlin - In 1986, applauded for her performance in ‘Children of a Lesser God’, Marlee became the first deaf actress to win an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. Look up and to the right >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> there she is talking about The Sign Language Company!

Gerald “Bummy” Burstein -  The first deaf person in the world to become a certified professional parliamentarian. He’s been credited as introducing to America the famous deaf applause — hands waving in the air. In 1999, the Riverside resident became the first deaf person to establish a chair at his alma mater, Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.

Linda Bove - A deaf American actress who played the part of Linda the Librarian on the children’s television program Sesame Street from 1971 to 2003. Bove has introduced thousands of children to sign language and issues surrounding the Deaf Community. Her role as Linda on Sesame Street is currently the longest recurring role in television history for a deaf person. Bove attended Gallaudet University.

William Elsworth – Dummy Hoy - (May 23, 1862 – December 15, 1961) was an American center fielder in Major League Baseball who played for several teams from 1888 to 1902, most notably the Cincinnati Reds and two Washington, D.C. franchises. He is noted for being the most accomplished deaf player in major league history, and is credited by some sources with causing the establishment of signals for safe and out calls. Hoy became deaf after suffering from meningitis at age three, and went on to graduate from the Ohio State School for the Deaf in Columbus as class valedictorian. Hoy also worked as an executive with Goodyear after supervising hundreds of deaf workers during World War I. In 1951 he was the first deaf athlete elected to membership in the American Athletic Association of the Deaf Hall of Fame.

Harold MacGrath - American author, (September 4, 1871 – October 30, 1932) was a bestselling American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. In an article in the April 23, 1932 issue of The Saturday Evening Post written under the title “The Short Autobiography of a Deaf Man,” MacGrath described how he had struggled early in life as a result of a hearing impairment. At a time in history when deaf people were almost automatically considered as lacking intellectual acuity, he managed to hide his deafness from his employer and others. Harold MacGrath’s success made him a very wealthy man and he traveled the world extensively.

Gertrude Ederle- (October 23, 1906 – November 30, 2003) Gertrude was an American competitive swimmer. In 1926, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. She trained at the Women’s Swimming Association, which produced such competitors as Eleanor Holm and Esther Williams. She joined the club when she was only fifteen. From this time Gertrude began to break and establish more amateur records than any other woman in the world. Ederle had poor hearing since childhood due to measles, and by the 1940s she was completely deaf. She spent the rest of her life teaching swimming to deaf children.

Laurent Clerc- (26 December 1785 – 18 July 1869) Laurant Clerc was called “The Apostle of the deaf in America” and “The Father of the Deaf” by generations of American deaf people. With Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, he co-founded the first school for the deaf in North America, the Hartford Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb on April 15, 1817 in the old Bennet’s City Hotel, Hartford, Connecticut.

Chuck Baird - Chuck Baird was born deaf in Kansas City and along with his three older sisters, went to the Kansas School for the Deaf. After an art residency at the California School for the Deaf in Fremont, he moved to San Diego in 1992 to work for DawnSignPress as an in-house artist, and painted a number of new Deaf-related works, culminating in the book, “Chuck Baird, 35 Plates.” He had his first major exhibition at the World Federation of the Deaf Conference in Washington DC in 1975.

Heather Whitestone McCallum - (born February 24, 1973) Heather was the first deaf Miss America title holder, having lost her hearing at the age of eighteen months. Whitestone represented Alabama at the 1995 Miss America pageant held in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Despite being profoundly deaf, she performed ballet en pointe to the song “Via Dolorosa” as her talent, winning the preliminary talent competition and the preliminary swimsuit competition.

Evelyn Glennie - (born July 19, 1965) is a Scottish virtuoso percussionist. She was the first full-time solo professional percussionist in 20th century western society. Glennie has been profoundly deaf  since age 12. This does not inhibit her ability to perform at the international level. She regularly plays barefoot for both live performances and studio recordings, to better “feel” the music.

I. King Jordan - The first president of Gallaudet University with a profound hearing loss.

Phyllis Frelich - won the Tony Award for her role in the stage production of Children of a Lesser God.

Terrylene Sachetti - Deaf actress, poet, storyteller, mime, and dancer.

Of course, this is just a partial list, but this post is already over 1100 words…..so we’ll save more for another time.

One question before we wrap it up. When approached by a deaf person requesting money to compensate for the ‘disability‘ and inability to work, what should one do? What is the appropriate action? What do you think?