The simplest and best to way to promote ASL is to focus on the positive only. No need to attack individuals or organizations for having a different opinion or philosophy. Below is my 1994 video of my hearing daughter, Heather, at her 1st birthday showing her cute way of responding to family's request on how to sign certain words. This is her at exactly 1 year old seeing how precocious of a child she was at the time when it came to signing and understanding the spoken language. This is exactly how ASL can be promoted in such a positive and enjoyable manner to parents of hearing and deaf children.
I am responding here to show people that I do support ASL for children with hearing loss. I even support the use of signing for hearing and deaf/hh babies because the benefit is the ease of communication for the baby or toddler. But in the same vein I also support the parents right and duty to make an informed decision regarding communication and educational options for their child with a hearing loss. Depending on circumstances or philosophies if the parents make an informed decision and decide to forgo signing then we have to respect that and move on.
Amy Cohen exemplified this very simple concept on the promotion of ASL a few years back in a discussion lost somewhere in the pages of Google history. I agree with her that the best way to promote ASL for children is to focus only on the positive. If there are leaders or people directly connected to an organization trying to promote ASL that have a habit of making personal and public attacks to other individuals or organizations then that organization will not succeed in its goal. It will fail. Why? Because people get turned off when an organization decides to go from a positive goal to a negative one. A goal cannot be achieved if one decides to focus more on the negative attacking than the promotion of ASL. Someone needs to make a decision on how this goal is achieved and maintained. I have no tolerance when I get personally attacked on a very public internet by an organization trying to promote ASL. I have my own opinions and philosophies. Either privately agree to disagree and move on. For an organization to publicly attack people can only make it look weaker and raises questions on the integrity of an organization's own goal in promoting the positive value and benefits of ASL to young children with hearing loss.
Monday, July 26, 2010
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9 comments:
Yup. Simply market ASL, bring it to the awareness of the public, point out the benefits. Don't focus too much on attacking other philosophies such as AVT, etc... the benefits of ASL get lost somewhere in the middle of the attacks...true victims are parents.
I agree with Karen. Three of my children knows ASL and it was neat experience to communicate during infant.
Russell
If only!!!
"A picture (in this case, a video) can say a thousand words." Amen.
Ann_C
what a cutie! McConnell, if you were to form a company marketing ASL signs for babies, you'd make millions from this one video of your darling girl. :)
I know a Deaf couple at my school. Both mother and father came from Deaf families. The mother is the most amazing language model I've ever seen, and I've seen a bunch of them over the years. Their three kids, all Deaf, are cute as buttons. Wish DBC would search for Deaf families like this and put up some appealing videos showing beautiful, expressive ASL used in family settings. Wouldn't that be such a refreshing change of pace? I do hope John Egbert is reading this.
Totally charming! Adding signs shows one way how adorable babies can be!
The point about emphasizing the positive and not attacking the naysayers is well taken. Absolutely!
However, in a well-toned discourse, the negative people must to be corrected when misconceptions and even gross falsehoods are spread around.
This is not to attack them, but to limit inaccuracies that damage a positive image of infant ASL.
Adorable! Yep, that's positive. That's all that is needed to convince parents that ASL can be one of the options to opt for. How hard can it be?? Why the need to put down other options? Again, let's try to live this motto in the deaf world: Accept and respect all language and all forms of communication options. I'm amazed with ICED 2010, they have put the icing on the cake.
Let's see deaf people doing their own thing regardless if in ASL/BSL or whatever, TOGETHER, surely a much MORE positive image ? A G Bell with Galllaudet etc... these are the targets to set, we're people not a coca-cola spin advert.
Keep in mind that DBC is heavily interwined with Deafhood. Deafhood condemns all other communication options. It promotes ASL while tearing down all other communication options.
Respect is taking into consideration the views and desires of others, and including it into your decisions. When you respect another, you factor and weigh their thoughts and desires into your planning and balance it into your decision making.
Russell
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