Problem here is that NAD does not have a position statement on accepting and respecting all forms of communication and languages including SEE, PSE, cued speech just as ICED recently made clear on respecting and accepting all forms of communication and languages. NAD does have a position statement on ASL and that was to be expected since they are focused on a particular group of audience than to a wider audience, something that HLAA caters to anyone with a hearing loss.
Some people tend to jump the gun and think I'm about advocating for the loss of "ASL" or the collapse of NAD and so forth. No. What I write are what I'm observing and provide talking points on those things. Just because my title says "The coming collapse of NAD" does not mean that I'm hoping it collapse. I made clear on the problems on what is NAD is facing and not about hoping for an eventual collapse.
Will NAD "collapse"? No. But certainly there are competitions out there and for people who feel they are not being well represented and will look elsewhere for support and the opportunity offer their contributions to the cause. The majority of people with hearing loss in the United States are not even a part of the deaf culture or have very little association with those culturally deaf organizations and/or culturally deaf people. Roughly 2% of the 36 million people with hearing loss are people who are considered to be culturally deaf. This is primarily the group that NAD caters mostly to seeing that their BODs are entirely made up of culturally deaf people and their interests mostly revolve around culturally deaf people and ASL, and how issues affect them. They essentially made their own "glass ceiling."What I have observed, and I'm not alone in this observation either, is this "glass ceiling" effect that NAD imposes on itself whose organization looks to be more specialized than inclusive. And nothing more beyond that. Jumping the gun about what I wrote doesn't help, folks.
To me, anybody that signs whether it's in SEE, PSE, mixed sign, ASL or what have you I see it as a language they are using to communicate. This is simply because of the fact that when people say they sign in "ASL" they are probably most likely signing outside of the recognized semantics, grammar, syntax, morphology, and phonology that defines specifically what ASL is about. Or in another word "pure" ASL, for the lack of a better word here. So, I don't feel the need nor the desire to analyze whether a person signing is in fact a language or not. He or she is communicating in his or her own special way of signing. For them, they consider their own signing as a language in its own right. I think it boils down to pride and arrogance to go around and say, "Your signing is a language. Yours is not. Yours is almost there. Yep, yours is definitely a language."
So, in retrospect there is nothing "speshul" about ASL in terms of whether its signing is considered to be a language or not. Rather an arrogant view to say which signing is the only acceptable "language." All of the various modes of signing are special in their own right and if people feel it's a language to them and how it benefits them with their daily communicating and learning, so be it. All the more power to them! And for the record, I'd say that SEE, for example, is a language. It's a visual language since it uses the complete English language in all of its grammar, semantics, syntax and meanings in a very accessible visual format.
My point is this. Any signing, I say it's a language in it's own right by those who use it for their own benefit. A visual language, that is. As for NAD, good luck to them. In the end, what counts are whether people with hearing loss feel that they are being cared for, catered to, or feel that they are getting the necessary support without the need for petty politics or favoritism. Whatever works, support them for that and you'll go farther than ever before.
