ROUGH EDITED COPY
EHDI
HANOVER A
SIGN LANGUAGE FOR FAMILIES AND PRACTITIONERS
FEBRUARY 28, 2016
11:00 A.M.
CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY:
ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION SERVICES, LLC
P.O. BOX 278
LOMBARD, IL 60148
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This is being provided in a rough‑draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
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>> We have some technical difficulties. I'm a Mac user, but everything here is PC based, so we are going to do what we can. It will take a minute.
Thanks.
>> Well, hello, everyone. I wanted to welcome you to session 5. The title of this session is "Sign Language for Families and Practitioners." So people who actually work in our fields. Thank you. Welcome. And thank you.
Now, I just mentioned that I'm a Mac user. Who is also a Mac user in this room? Yeah. ? Of course everything here is PC‑based, but look, hey, like magic. Did it appear yet? No? Not yet. Okay. All right. We're waiting for the PowerPoint to get downloaded, so hopefully that will happen in a couple moments, but ‑‑
Okay. Who in the room already knows sign language? No? Some? Yes? So you feel very confident in your knowledge, or you want to get a little bit more? Because we will be teaching American Sign Language, some very basic signs and we'll cover some of the benefits of American Sign Language. That's sort of the purpose of our workshop today. And we're waiting.
Who is a first‑time participant in the EHDI conference? Anybody brand new? Yeah. Me, too ‑‑ actually. Most of us are.
We don't have a wifi connection. We're having trouble getting everything taken care of. What is the ‑‑ can you help us with the wifi? Who are the parents in the room? Yes? Audiologists? Yay! How about practitioners? EI. Yeah, that would include EI. Yep. Any students? Yeah? Well, welcome. I'm a student as well. I just graduated with my bachelor's in psychology at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., and so this fall I will begin my graduate program in school counseling.
Do you want to introduce yourself?
>> Sure. I'll be happy to. This is Tammy Lewis. Hi. Here's my name sign. I'm a graduate student with a major in social work, and I'm working in school social work, and I'm very happy to see everyone here today. Fun fact. We actually grew up together for ‑‑ so how long have we known each other? Like, forever, right? Basketball in high school. She's a very good ‑‑ we're very good friends.
Oh, here we go. Look. Well, here we are. ASL ‑‑ oops, sorry! Thank you. And thank you for your patience, everyone. Here we are. American Sign Language for families and professionals. Thank you for being here.
Now, Mark could not be here so Tammy and I have taken his place, but we're happy that you're all here with us. So today we're actually here for EHDI, and we're going to be focusing on the "I" part, the intervention part. So we're going to learn some signs and things like that that are different strategies we can use with American Sign Language, and that's what we're going to kind of focus on now, the intervention piece.
I'll let you review the slide.
We'll start with American Sign Language. So who already ‑‑ we had this question before. You all know about ASL, right, American Sign Language, right? All right. So we'll cover that. What is sign language. We'll talk ‑‑ we will teach you some basic signs here. We will have fun with that. That will be an interactive piece of our presentation today. Read the slide.
So American Sign Language includes hand shapes, facial expressions, movements. ASL ‑‑ well, here's a question. Does anybody believe that American Sign Language is a universal language? No? Not sure? Yes? Anybody believe that? Yes? Yes? Who believes no? You are correct. It is not a universal. It's the same as spoken languages. How many spoken languages are there in the world? There's the same number of sign languages, mostly, in the world. Many people here in the United States use American Sign Language, but we have Spanish sign language. We have LSQ from Canada. We have, in the world, approximately 150 different sign languages. We do have regional dialects, just as you do in spoken languages. We have accents in American Sign Language, just as you do in spoken languages, and for me that's always fun to meet people. I can almost tell where they're from, what region of the country they're from based on their signing styles.
We will do some comparisons between spoken languages and sign languages, and contrasting it. I'll let you review the slide a little. So you notice the last three are the same, correct? They stimulate the brain's language tissue. What's different is eyes, hands versus mouth and voice. So how we transmit the information through a visual form or an auditory form is different between sign languages and spoken languages. We ‑‑ the brain itself does not discriminate against whatever languages. It doesn't matter if it's a spoken form or an auditory form, the brain still perceives it as language.
Some of the reasons to use American Sign Language, when a baby is born deaf, that first day, you can begin signing to a child. Once the child does acquire some language, they will be able to identify themselves as an individual through family relationships, friends relationships, it builds their identity. It helps with their social secures, and because people who have the same language share that in common, that's a common language for all people. For example, I told you that we grew up together and without American Sign Language, we probably would not be in the same friend group.
Situations, environments, whether it be the home or the school, with friends, the social environment you can speak auditorily, you can use American Sign Language, that's fine. When you're developing your relationship with your child through parental relationships, you will form a bond. You can also learn with your child at the same time a new language. So the new sign of the moment, we saw that idea of being inspired, and you can ‑‑ whatever happens in the moment, you can share with each other at the moment.
It is a three‑dimensional visual language so the brain actually does a lot of activity around that. It is very good for the brain development. And of course American Sign Language being a visual language, there's a lot of expressive, creative ways you can express the language, through body language and facial expressions. Here we have, for example, a tree. Might have a tiny tree or a large tree, you can express that through your body language. You can do all kinds of ‑‑ we do have American Sign Language literature. We have poetry. We have songs. We have music. So it's very interesting to watch American Sign Language, if you ever look on YouTube for poems in American Sign Language, it's a very beautiful language. You can see a lot of that happening.
Now, is everybody ready? That was the basics. Let's look at some of these signs.
I would like to actually give you ‑‑ what we'll do is we'll show you the signs, but then I want to give you time to practice together as well. Here's a representation of the word "More."
This one is "Finish."
"Sleep." Think of your eyes closing for that one. Sleep.
Medicine. Using your middle finger, correct, yes. Good. Good. Medicine.
Can anybody guess the next sign? There you go, yes, exactly. Eat. Eat, or food.
"Milk." Now, babies, you have to understand, just as you ‑‑ as somebody who uses spoken language will babble, you can babble in sign language ‑‑ babble in sign language. For example, the sign for milk really looks like this. And then a babble version of milk may look like this.
"Change." Two fists twisting on each other. Change.
"Help."
"Bath." Bathe, right? Scrub a dub dub, rub a dub dub in the tub, right?
"Play." You can add some facial expressions for how much play we're going to do. Or you can get them out of the playground. They always want to stay and play, right? Here's a banana, the fruit, a banana, looks like you're peeling the banana, right? That one makes sense, right?
"Water.". Who's drinking water right now? Who's hydrating well? Good. Good, good, good.
"Book." Open the book, read the book, you see that one makes sense. The dog. Calling the dog. There's a couple of versions of it, but dog.
"Cat." Why do you think that is? Why? The whiskers? Did I hear somebody say whiskers? Yes. Correct.
"Share." We share, we share.
"Red."
"Ball." Also that round shape, right? That makes sense. Ball.
I think everybody knows the next one, right? Please. Please. And it's also if you changed the hand shape the same location, though, can be sorry, depending on the shape of the hand.
"Thank you." Thank you.
"Apple." Apple. Yep. Crook of a finger. Yep. There you go.
Okay. So I'm going to cover the pictures. You're going to have to try to remember the best that you can what you just learned. Okay?
So there's the covered‑up picture. There you go. Right. More. Yes. There you go. Good job. Good job. Remember? Yes. Yes!
Finish. You have nothing in your hands. Remember what we said about sleep? Yep. Your eyes are closed. Yes.
Medicine, oh, sure, yeah. Of course. But there you see, medicine. Remember the middle finger? There you go.
Food. I think everybody already knows that one.
Milk. Remember milk? Milk, like milking the cow? How do you milk a cow? Milk. There you go. Milk.
Help. Very good. Yes. Yes. Very good.
Change. Change. Yep. Both your firsts. Change. There you go. Yes. And we had mentioned about different regional signs. Some people will sign change more fist‑shaped. Sometimes it's more with an "X" hand shape, but they're the same word. It just looks differently. Some signs depend on the context as well, so...
Bath. Do you remember bath? There you go. Scrub a dub dub. Yep. Bath. There you go.
Now, pictures are not always perfect. Banana. Yep. Peeling the fruit. Wonderful.
Play? Anybody? There you go. How about water? Yes! Yes! You guys are doing great! Yes. Water. There you go. There you go.
Book. Book. Yep. Great.
Dog. Calling the dog. Yes. Yes. Yep, or you can just skip the pat of the leg part and do the dog part.
How about cat? Yep. Cat. A couple of different ones. Cat, the whiskers. One‑handed. Two‑handed. Still a cat.
Share. Share? Oh, yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. Share. Great.
Bread. Slice of bread. Yep, there you go. A slice of bread. Bread.
Ball. The shape. Yep. The shape. Ball.
Apple. There you go. Yep. Great.
Please, I think you know that one. Sorry. I hit that faster than I wanted to. And thank you. Thank you! Yes! Thank you! Thank you.
Are there any signs you want to know? Any words that you're thinking, what is that? When you sign with a child now, something that might come to mind that we didn't cover, hello? Hello? Spank. Somebody says spank. Okay. Spank. Okay. What was this? Bad? Naughty. Naughty. Oh, look. We have two different ones. Naughty. Bad. Naughty. Bad.
Oh, that's a good question. Birthday signs. Birthday signs. Oh, goodness, yes. There's a variety of them. Here's one. Birthday. Birthday. This is all regional and dialectical. Birthday is another one. Here's another one that many people have seen. Oh, the ear one, yes, oh, this one, here, blowing out the candles of the cake. Birthday, tugging on your ears. The most common one you see would be either birthday or birthday. Those tend to be very common. Yeah, you ‑‑ what? What? Which one? Oh, like birth, no. Birth ‑‑ no. No. No. The act of giving birth and a day are not ‑‑ no. That's different.
Oh, happy birthday, oh, there you go. Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday.
Good job. Oh, good job. Yes. Okay. Good job. Good job. You can finger spell the word job. You can also say good work. It is the other hand shape. Good work.
Nice to meet you, yes. Nice to meet you.
Oh, take turns, yes, you, then me, take turns. We go back and forth, take turns.
So that's very representation of where the people are in space. I'll take a turn, you'll take a turn. Week take a turn. Everyone can take a turn in the classroom as we are doing today. You can all take turns.
Sign language is ‑‑ requires eye contact. It's ‑‑ everyone needs to pay attention, so eye contact is very important. For a child, if you're signing with your child, eye contact will become very important.
I'll give you an example. At bath time, you can use signs, right, bath, water, you've learned those, so in a situational relative context, you can use the signs. Breast feeding. We do that five to ten times a day, correct, as a newborn. So you can take the opportunity when you're breast feeding to say, do you want milk? Use those every day repetitively. The baby will begin to babble the milk sign as we mentioned. Visually, they can take in that language very easily. It's the same as auditory stimulation of the brain, and the brain will recognize it as language and eventually it would welcome language. Remember, babies' minds, they can actually sign before they can voice with ‑‑ because the structures of the human body develop at different times.
So there was a question. Yes. What was the question?
>> [Off mic inaudible].