Pauline Owen believes being too strict about the rules of sign language is stopping kids from expressing themselves naturally
Since my earliest years I’ve been using sign language, because my mum was deaf it came almost as second nature. The signs themselves are quite intuitive and, like everything else, sign language is easier to learn if you’re taught from a young age.
I founded See and Sign to teach young people sign language in families who have a deaf loved one. We just launched this year, have two other signers on board (one of whom is my husband) and we hope to encourage more signers to volunteer to enable us to reach out to as many families as possible.
People learn their own signing vernacular, their own accent much the same as speech
People learn their own signing vernacular, their own accent much the same as speech
Learning official BSL (British Sign Language) can be far more difficult than everyday sign language. BSL is the official version and certain standards have to be attained before a student passes. But young people can learn the basics quite easily.
I find that most children who are in a house with someone who is hearing impaired will have a good foundation in signing; often they have their own signs and mode of communication. The tactic is not to disrupt that but to encourage it. Then you can enhance what they are learning and introduce them to more expressions, which they can adapt for their own use.
Signing should never be about prescription. People learn their own signing vernacular, their own accent much the same as speech. Part of the problem in the past is that specialist schools have been very dictatorial about sign language and forced learners to strictly adhere to set ways of learning. This method has been proven to fail as learners need flexibility and the freedom to express themselves in the way they feel best.
Communication is universal but it can also be very personal. Some siblings who have hearing impairments develop very specific ways of communicating that is unique to them, others probably would find this language hard to understand.
It’s intriguing how young people are almost non-judgmental when it comes to deaf people in their own family. Because they have often grown up around the issue, it is part of life for them. That contrasts very differently to the environment in wider society, especially at school where young people can face discrimination from all sides, including teaching staff.
Ignorance is the problem here – and a little understanding can go a long way. More teaching staff need to have clearer guidance on teaching young deaf and hearing impaired children. It’s nothing major: it’s very simple awareness training that, once learned, will make them more able to identify the issues and problems facing deaf children as well as how the class interacts with a deaf child.
That’s something we’ll be undertaking later on this year, visiting schools and speaking, and hopefully in the near future, we'll be undertaking awareness training for staff. This should fund us to undertake more volunteer work with families.
