SIGN LANGUAGE AS A “CRUTCH” It was 1986. My parents had left to go on vacation in the mountains, and I was left at home, alone. About lunch time, I took my mother’s car over to Wendy’s Hamburgers. I was going to try to do something I had never done before… go through a Drive Thru. I pulled up, my hand on the speaker.. and when I felt a vibration, then the vibration stop, I gave my order, kept my hand on the speaker..but felt nothing in “response”. I drove forward to get my order. The window never opened… and I didn’t even see anyone anywhere close to the window. Then, the manager comes walking out, blocking my car so that I couldn’t leave. He began saying something, and he was mad. I was trying to figure out what I did wrong. He then walked over to the drivers side of my car. “You think you are funny? I am tired of you kids making noises and speeding off. You are going to stay right where you are!” Long story short…. I got my meal, he didn’t even make me pay for it. He insisted that I take it and, for my troubles, don’t worry about paying. He also told me next time just “come inside”. Which would you prefer, congenital Deafness, or adventitious Deafness? Would it be better to never be able to hear, if you are going to become Deaf later on in life, or just be Deaf from the moment you are born? One of the benefits of “adventitious Deafness”, that is, becoming Deaf after birth, and usually after childhood, is that you have already acquired speech. Post-lingual Deafness at least allows a person to pick up language, to hear sounds and know how to speak intelligibly. Pre-lingual Deafness often renders a person “mute”, unable to speak. Proponents of the Oral Method, that is, teaching Deaf children to speak, rather than to sign, often refer to sign language as a “CRUTCH”. Those who fail to learn to speak often end up in Deaf schools anyway, and learn to sign. Post-lingual Deafness, though, does not guarantee that the Deafened individual will always be able to speak with clarity. At the age of 14, I was sent to “speech therapy” with Mrs. Zeller. I hated going, and only went twice, I think. The problem was, I began to lose my vowels. “Like” and “lake”, “hat” and “hot”, “sleep” and “slip” were very hard for me. I couldn’t make them sound different. When I entered college, I stood at the registrar’s desk, and the woman asked me to spell my last name. I told her, “R” and she wrote that down, then I said “I”, and she wrote “A”. So, you see, it was getting harder and harder to speak clearly. Speech wasn’t the only thing. I had probably expedited the aging process by worrying about whether someone was talking to me, and constantly looked around, looked at people around me. It nearly drove me crazy. One day, I decided all this was going to change. No more worrying about whether someone was talking to me. If someone wanted my attention, they’d have to come and tap me on the shoulder. I figured my blood pressure would drop a bit if I began to do this. And this idea that sign language was a “CRUTCH”…. I got news for the Oral Method folks…All those kids you had in an oral school for the purpose of teaching them to talk…most of them talk like I do… Deaf-voiced. They come up with a feeling of failure, a feeling that, even though they have been taught, they cannot succeed…and.. one more thing… almost every single one eventually learns to sign. Sign language, whether it is ASL (American Sign Language), PSE (Pidgin-signed English), or SEE (signed Exact English), it is how the Deaf should be able to communicate. Don’t judge a Deaf person by his speech. Sheesh. We aren’t supposed to be able to speak. Sign language is not a crutch, it’s the most reasonable, easy, efficient, and accurate way for a Deaf person to communicate. There is no guessing. When I had the last court case, the lawyer on the other side said, “Dr. Ricks… we are aware that you can speak. Why are you using a sign language interpreter to speak for you, and why are you not using your voice or your lipreading skills??” She thought she pinned me down or something, because when she finished, she had a smirk on her face. I told her, in a legal situation, I ALWAYS sign. Why? Because it leaves no doubt as to what I say. A Deaf person who primarily signs is NOT someone who has failed to learn to speak, or fails to speak intelligibly, and has found Sign Language as a crutch. We simply sign for the same reason Hearing people speak. It’s what is natural for us.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 04:24:52 +0000