Can You Sign. . . Parsley?

Seriously I'm stumped. I have this ASL project where I'm translating Peter Rabbit. He gets sick and needs to eat some parsley to settle his tummy. We're not supposed to fingerspell, if at all possible. Is there a sign? I've got maybe seven ASL dictionaries around here. None of them have the word parsley.

What I Learned From A Butterfly

"Hoping to catch your eye Circling around you, oh my Butterfly, butterfly, come into the light Oh, what a beautiful sight Flying so gracefully Into the sky, the butterfly Trying to catch a butterfly Fly, fly, fly, butterfly. . ." - Sharon Adamson

A few years ago I was inspired by a visit to our zoo where they had just opened their new butterfly garden. I wish I had a camera at the time. My son, then only 10, was wearing a bright red cap and a pretty little yellow butterfly landed right on his head, maybe thinking the red cap was a big red flower. It rested there for a few seconds then flittered away. The butterfly house was packed with colorful butterflies flying every which way.

Later I began to think about the metamorphosis process butterflies go through, and I couldn't help feeling it was similar to the transformation I had traveled toward deafness. For awhile I went through a self-imposed isolation while adjusting to the changes taking place within me. Then one day I realized I wanted to make the most of life as a late-deafened person. I was tired of the cocoon. I tentatively reached out, and as I opened up more and more, I discovered I was a changed person.

I had gone through a metamorphosis, just like the butterflies around me. I began to think of them as a symbol of my transformation.

I started my own butterfly garden. Little by little I began planting flowers to attract them. I stopped spraying my plants with poison that might kill their young, and I put out little tiny cups for water for them to drink from when it became too dry in the summer.

A butterfly garden isn't always pretty. It isn't filled with beautiful or rare hybrids that need a lot of attention. Butterflies prefer wildflowers and "weeds" that grow naturally in their regions. To attract butterflies one must be willing to overlook caterpillars eating leaves and to allow weeds where a mother butterfly might lay her larvae. I've learned to see weeds and caterpillars in a new light.

Because I often talk about my butterfly garden, people sometimes ask to see. They expect a show of colorful, fragrant flowers. My yard is not beautiful. It's natural. I can see the disappointment on their faces when they realize my entire weedy yard is butterfly compatible. They look at my jumble of blackberry vines, oregon grape and salal, then grimace. The "garden" is not in just one tiny section. After all, butterflies fly away. I want them to be safe everywhere.

There have been a few surprises along the way. For example, an increase in wildlife to my yard. You see, the wildflowers attract squirrels, deer and especially hummingbirds, as well as other birds--woodpeckers, stellers jays, chicadees, which attract raccoons because of the eggs laid, which attract coyote because of the abundance of small prey. . . We now have an entire family of raccoons living somewhere in our side yard. I've watched them collecting crows eggs high up in a tree, while the crows took turns dive-bombing them. It's entertaining to sit in my yard and watch the wild animal show--coyotes running across the driveway in pursuit of something, deer resting in the grass with their young. Yeah-- the grass would look better mowed, but deer prefer tall grass and also the blackberry brambles in my lower yard.

These past few years, as I've thrown myself into gardening for butterflies, I've developed a new passion for gardens and wildlife I never had before. This, in itself, has propelled me towards further acceptance of my deafness. Gardening replaced the piano I miss. Even in winter months I plan what I'm going to do to my yard come spring to attract more butterflies.

Then-- I learned something new. Butterflies in all their splendid color are deaf!! I now see them as God's special little angels. They're here to remind us there's beauty in deafness and in the NATURAL world around us.

If you've been wondering where I've been lately, you'll find me in the garden.

Oralism vs Spoken English

I couldn't help but respond to Barb Digi's vlog after seeing her video with the little boy. In this video we watch as a hard-of-hearing or Deaf child tries to process a math problem. He seems to be concentrating hard. He uses his hands to make a plus sign. Then he makes a five with his right hand while saying the word "five" There was no sound on the video but it's easy to lipread. Next, we see his hand get pushed down by the oral facilitator, not in an abusive way, but firmly. It's clearly a reprimand-- almost a light slap-- though he doesn't seem hurt.

My grandmother was born in 1885. When I was a little girl she used to tell me about her school days. She was a "leftie." The school master used to hit her hand with a stick whenever he caught her writing with her left hand. She learned to write with her right hand, but inside she was always a "leftie." Though a good student, she dropped out of school at the age of 14 because writing with her right hand all the time was so uncomfortable. Her right-hand writing was never beautiful and she felt repressed. Seventy years later, I would sit on her bed listening to this story, wondering why her school master was so mean. My own father is a "leftie" and I myself took a long time to decide on a dominant hand. I still perform many tasks left-handed. Today, left-handedness is respected. We realize it's more important to teach a child information than to worry about what hand he or she uses.

Back in the early 1980's when I took early childhood development classes, I learned the more senses stimulated during a lesson, the more students will retain. For this reason most preschools develop a highly sensory environment organized around one weekly or monthly theme. Even adults prefer to process information through different senses. Because all people process differently, teachers need to be sure to consider the many learning styles of their students. Research has identified seven ways people absorb new information. (Some say there are only three, however the seven ways are basically the first three broken into more detail.) Most people have one dominant and a secondary preference. It should come as no surprise that hard-of-hearing/deaf/Deaf children and adults may not process information auditorily. We tend to be more visual and kinesthetic.

Further, it's estimated only ten percent of the hearing population processes auditorally. Most people, whether hearing or deaf, prefer looking at visuals, touching, manipulating, dancing, playing games, singing about and smelling objects while learning.

Our schools overwhelmingly rely on outdated aural teaching methods, in which a teacher lectures and a student listens. However, in the past few decades many elementary school teachers have begun to incorporate art, games, visuals and manipulatives to help their students learn. Hearing children now often learn the ASL alphabet because teachers have found ASL enhances spelling lessons. Secondary school teachers also try to include other learning styles into their lessons by assigning group projects. The idea is that hopefully students will organize themselves according to their learning strengths. Even college professors utilize group projects to a large degree-- because they recognize the importance of learning styles.

What bothered me most about that video was the little boy's natural kinesthetic learning style was being discouraged. Forced to sit still with his hands folded on a table, he was only allowed to listen and respond orally when questioned. That teaching method is SO outdated I wanted to scream. Worse-- a hearing child in the same one-on-one situation would NOT have had his hand pushed down. His kinesthetic need should have been respected.

It reminded me of the stories my grandma used to tell about being a "leftie."

My ASL Assignment

'Now run along, and don't get into mischief. I am going out.'

Last night we were given an assignment to translate a children's story book. We were allowed to pick one book out of a pile my teacher had dumped on a table. I have always loved Beatrix Potter, so I chose The Tale of Peter Rabbit. I was thinking there would be lots of fun action and so on.



Now I'm in the process of translating English to ASL. I'm finding this a most difficult task mainly because there are times words will not adequately convey an action. For example, the act of placing a "sieve" over Peter becomes an exercise in establishing a classifier to indicate the sieve, then placing the imaginary sieve over a rabbit. There are simply no words for this, and I'm at a loss. So-- I've written on paper how I would handle it in ASL, and I hope that satisfies her.



She's Deaf, by the way.



My husband said the other day that he read somewhere (yeah I know, don't quote me on this) that the English language has about four times the number of words, compared to all other languages. He was surprised by this fact, and so was I. The British also have a tendency to be wordy compared to Americans. I've heard British complain about the inadequacies of American vocabularies, as some studies have indicated that even British children have a much expanded vocabulary over American adults. As a culture Brits seem to LOVE words and tend to use new adjectives and word plays much more in their everyday communications-- which we Americans see as the endearing British wit.



I had never thought about it before, but I'm now finding this story written by Beatrix Potter , a Brit, overly wordy for children, maybe because I have to translate it into ASL. This is HARD.



Sentences such as, "Peter was most desperately frightened," have turned into "Peter scared!" But again that isn't sufficient, since there are ways of signing levels of fear that don't translate. We learned the word for "very" last night, since it was in the book, but my ASL teacher said to disregard it. Not needed. Deaf people don't use it since they show the concept of "very" in their Deaf expressions. Interesting. I had been wondering about this for awhile.



The second half of the assignment will be to tell our stories to the class. We all suck at fingerspelling, so we are to present the story as if we're telling it to children who don't yet read. No fingerspelling. All the characters are to be given name signs and words we haven't learned can't be used. This gives you an example of where we're at in ASL. We're like children. I openly admit all your fingers look like a blur to me when you fingerspell.



Personally I think this is a wonderfully challenging assignment. Not only am I learning ASL syntax, but it also sends home the point of how difficult translation can be between English and ASL. I have a new found appreciation for those of you who vlog and transcribe or caption. It isn't easy!

Global Language Monitor http://www.languagemonitor.com/wst_page7.html

Slate http://www.slate.com/id/2139611/

Ask Oxford http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutenglish/mostwords?view=uk

Learning the Deaf Way of Life

Not long ago in a recent post (The Blame Game) I mentioned the need for Deaf support to help the late-deafened transition into deafness. My article focused mainly on the difficulties of learning ASL in a hearing environment, but there are a number of ways a Deaf person could support late-deafened people through the transition of learning to live with deafness.


Wendy beautifully described some new situations she's dealing with now that she can no longer hear at all. How do you use a TTY? Where is the best place to put a flashing fire alarm? How can it be hooked up to notify you all over the house?

It might sound odd to some of you, but growing up hearing I was never exposed to any of this Deaf stuff. I didn't know phones with text and blinking lamps, and shaking bed alarms existed. My entire family is hearing and all my friends used to be hearing. I was the first hard-of-hearing-going-deaf person I ever knew. When my hearing loss first began there was no internet, and there was no SHHH or ALDA in my area. My audiologist didn't think to tell me how to negotiate every day living, such as what to do if you can't hear your own fire alarm.


You would think an audiologist would offer some daily living support to a newly late-deafened person besides just hearing aids and/or cochlear implants, but in this regard audiologists are clueless. For example, at my last audiology appointment my audie pointed to my Sidekick and asked, "What's that?" She had never seen one before. When I explained what I could do with it, she was amazed. I too was amazed-- at her ignorance in this matter. Surely I wasn't the only patient she's ever had who couldn't use a cell phone? Audiology clinics focus on helping people hear, NOT on all the accommodations deaf people can use when they CAN'T hear. It's a void that needs to be filled, for sure, but who should fill it?

Everyone-- both hearing and deaf-- seem to think it's the OTHER group's responsibility to help us adjust. So by and large there's no support for the late-deafened, except other late-deafened people, who are mostly learning as they go.

Gosh-- it would be so great if a Deaf veteran took my hand and said-- "This is how to do it!" I'm still trying to figure out the Video Phone I got from Sprint months ago. The problem is it was linked to a computer that died and everything's been wonky since. I'm not sure what to do, so I haven't used it in months. I'd love to use it to practice ASL with a few people I know. To be perfectly honest I'm still totally confused about all the different phone options for deaf people and how they work. It's mind-boggling.

It wasn't until I found SHHH (now HLAA) I learned a few things-- about Harris Catalog, FM systems, my deaf rights and pocket talkers. I found them on my own twenty years after I started losing my hearing. Turned out there's a wonderful support center for the Deaf/deaf/Hard-of-hearing in Seattle, but I hadn't heard about them either. Through HLAA I found another group, the SWC, which is on-line. I can't tell you how important their support has been to me. But my point is, I merely stumbled onto both these organizations twenty years AFTER losing my hearing. No one was there to help me cope for twenty years.


Whose responsibility is it to support deaf/Deaf/HH people?? Other deaf/Deaf/HH people. We would be much more powerful and effective as a community working together. Maybe it's time to recognize none of us has the right answer for everyone. Maybe it would be better if we just reached out to those confused hearing parents of Deaf children and newly late-deafened people and said, "This is what works for ME, but there are other ways too."

We're all in this together.