Speech-Language Pathologists have a range of career fields they may enter after graduating with their Masters degree. No matter the field they decided to specialize in, there is an advantage to have knowledge and experience with ASL (American Sign Language). ASL may be used for increasing job outlook, improving communication with people who use ASL, as a therapy tool, and to facilitate oral language (Finch, 2016). Furthermore, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, people who have a fluency in ASL have the potential to be “more attractive” to employers because being linguistically diverse can increase your value. More opportunities may open because this person has the ability to work with deaf and hard-of-hearing clientele …show more content…
William Vicars, ASL is an “augmentative and alternative communication tool” which gives an alternative method of communication instead of speech. Individuals who have difficulties with, or cannot, communicate orally because of either a speech or language disorder, gain a way to communicate efficiently. Using ASL may either be a temporary or permanent solution to a problem (Vicars, 2016). As an example, Dr.Vicars uses a child with apraxia. This child would have the “ability to make the sounds of speech but have difficulty doing so.” Learning to sign first may be helpful because it gives this child a way to communicate that can be used in oral therapies later on. Using ASL can be used to facilitate oral language. (Vicars, …show more content…
A person who does not have a fluency of the language tends to slow down their rate of speech when signing at the same time. This allows the child to follow along easier, have a better chance of “imitating” the way their parent or guardian speaks, and gives them additional time to allow for “motoric transitions between words”. Utilizing signs during therapy also serves as visual cues which will help the individuals. When signs are consistently paired with a verbal sound or word, it can become a cue that will trigger the child and help them produce the correct sound or word. Though using signs as cues might lessen overtime, if the individual is struggling at any point with a certain sound or word, using a cue will again help them (Gretz, 2013). In conclusion, there are multiple advantages for a speech-language pathologist to learn ASL. The goals of speech-language pathologists include helping treat speech, language, and communication disorders, and by utilizing ASL in therapy, there are benefits for the individuals requiring the help and it can facilitate oral language. The speech-language pathologist will also be more attractive to employers and have the ability to communicate with people who use ASL, increasing the range of individuals they may help. ASL may very well be an important language for
The evidence from those universities which accept ASL as a foreign language suggests the opposite. At these universities, there is no record of a decrease in traditional foreign language enrollment due to enrollments in ASL. As a matter of fact, ASL instruction may lead to increased foreign language enrollment. ASL students often report that they are more interested in other languages -- and indeed more likely to take a traditional, spoken foreign language -- because of their ASL study. The joy of learning a new language and of communicating with people across cultural boundaries, it seems, is
I have always been fascinated by sign language and was exposed to it at a young age, through a deaf ministry at church and my previously mentioned friend who taught me a few signs and some of the alphabet. I have seen my friend’s family show great patience with this family member. He is a distant relative, so they do not see him a lot and are not fluent in ASL simply because they are not around him very often. However, when everyone does meet up for family gatherings or holidays-they are all very patient and kind towards him. They make it a point to accommodate him in conversations and activities.
“Makaton is a signing system devised by a speech therapist in the 1970s to help adults with severe learning difficulties to communicate. It is a basic means of communication and encourages language development in children and adults with communication difficulties” (Mukherji et al, 2000, Pg. 94). The Makaton vocabulary was designed in 1972 by Marget Walker, she came up with the idea of Makaton through responding and working towards to needs of deaf adults with severe difficulties. Grove et al (1990) highlights that through working with these adults she was looking at signing to teach them language and communication skills. This shows that Walker developed a communication tool through working with the adults with disabilities, this shows
With the various forms of sign language such as American Sign Language (ASL), Signed Exact English (SEE), and Pidgeon Signed English (PSE) there is the potential for sign language to help individuals with a variety of disabilities. The use of sign language can be pared with speaking if the individual with disabilities has the capability to do both, or sign language only can be used if the person is non-verbal. Sign language is more commonly used with individuals who have the developmental disabilities of Autism and Down syndrome. Studies binging in the 1970’s and spanning a more then 40 years have found that using sign language can be an effective way for individuals with disabilities to
The opportunity to observe the work overview of a Speech Pathologist, has tremendously solidified my interest in this field. At the Diana Rogovin Speech Center at Brooklyn College, I observed clients of various ages with different speech language disorders including articulation, language, voice, fluency and accent modification. Observing clinicians at the speech center gave me the opportunity to learn how important client-clinician interaction is for the session and how essential it is to build a good relationship with the client. Although I learned the
The most successful interventions for Sarah are a special preschool that is equipped for the deaf and hard of hearing. This school began to teach Sarah American Sign Language (ASL). The school has several interventions that worked well for Sarah, among them a speech therapist, special education teacher, and an interpreter. Sarah worked well with a speech therapist and with the special education teacher, however her social skills were limited in the classroom. The main reason there are social skill concerns are that Sarah does not hear other students and can not deliver competent responses to them because of her inability to hear properly.
Kirsten Conover, a news reports for the Christian Science Monitor, discovered, “According to one count, more than 70 universities and colleges accept American Sign Language to fulfill a foreign language.” As more colleges offer ASL courses, lower education school may offer it as a course counted as a credit. With the knowledge of Sign Language, people are able to communicate with the deaf and hearing impaired or individuals that use the language, which consists of 70 million people. Careers such as doctors, nurses, teachers, and police officers are just some of the careers that being able to speak Sign Language could advance their qualifications among other people in their career field. The people in these careers would be able to communicate with all individuals
What people do not understand is that signed language is visual communication therefore the language is pictorial. ASL does have grammar there is a set of rules to follow for words and sentence formation. A transcription of ASL is called glosses their sentences are not as wordy as hearing people. For example, in chapter 3 of “A Journey into the Deaf-World” says, “Me mother responsible children me take-care-of fee clean list.” This translates for hearing people, “I’m a mother, which means I have a lot of responsibilities. I must take care of the children, feed them, clean them up- there’s a whole list.” People assume deaf people have only one sign for one word, which is not true at all. They have multiple signs for one word because just one word can have multiple meanings. Like the word run has different meanings, therefore there are different signs for the word run. The stages for deaf babies learning signed language are very similar to that of hearing babies learning spoken English. Just like hearing babies, deaf babies begin at the one-word stage
ASL (American Sign Language) is the natural language for the deaf. There are multiple languages that are not supported by the Deaf, for example, Sign Supported Speech, Signed English, and Cued Speech, to name a few. These languages are mostly used to help Deaf children learn English. Spoken English is mainly useless to the Deaf. ESL (English Sign language) is not longer used, because the Deaf like ASL better as it makes more sense to them.
The development of American Sign Language in the United States dates back to as early as the 1600s. On Martha’s Vineyard there was a relatively large Deaf population due to genetics and heredity. This was thought to trace back to the first people of the land, who traveled from Massachusetts and carried this genetic deafness with them. Because there were so many people that were deaf living there, it was extremely common for all people, deaf and hearing, to learn their own version of sign language. This early form of sign language was known as Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL) (Lapiak, 1996-2014). Little did the creators of Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language know, MVSL would be incorporated into the first school for deaf students
The first set the deaf child will learn that fingerspelled words as whole set before making the connections between the fingerspelled words and English text, then when they emerge into reading and writing English, it becomes noticeable (Blumenthal-Kelly, 1995; Padden, 1991; Padden & LeMaster, 1985). The second set is that deaf children will make connections between the fingerspelled handshapes to the English alphabet, then links both in a written form (Padden, 2006). This two sets of skills as research show the pattern of fingerspelling acquisition for deaf children early, that is when they are exposed to ASL and fingerspelling at an early age especially those from deaf families. They perform higher on reading achievement tests (Padden & Ramsey, 2000). Hearing children in the early childhood program are taught sign language and fingerspelling because it showed successes with early literacy. Edmunds & Krupinski (n.d.) stated that doing sign language and fingerspelling assists hearing children with the myriad of learning styles according to Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner, 2004) presented in any classroom and it accommodates the wide range of learning styles. Alike hearing children, deaf children have the myriad of
American Sign Language (ASL) is a visual and natural language. It is used widely by the members of the deaf community in the United States (Valli & Lucas, 2000; Andrews, Leigh, & Weiner, 2004). About 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents (DOH) (NIDCD, 2015). 10% of deaf children are born to families with one or both deaf parents (DOD) (Mitchell & Karchmer, 2002). Deaf children of DOD will use ASL as their primary language rather than spoken English or a different language such as Spanish, Chinese, or other than English (Mitchell & Karchmer, 2002). Deaf families understand the importance of having language access early and their deaf children’s vocabulary will be as big comparable to hearing children who are learning a spoken language (Baker, 2010). Deaf children from DOD have full access to ASL whereas most deaf children from DOH have limited access to ASL. Deaf children of DOH are typically not given the same early opportunity (Baker, 2010). Research suggested that the first few years of the deaf child’s life are the most crucial to a child’s development of language skills and for establishing successful communication (NIDCD, 2014).
Hearing and speaking, two common human abilities that people often take for granted. Some people are unlucky and are cursed by the fact that they can not hear or speak, the feeling of isolation, knowing that they will never get to experience what everyone else experiences, never getting to communicate with the people near them like a regular human being. It must be a very lonely experience to know that you can not communicate with other people due to the fact that you can not hear and speak. But in every unfortunate event there is a silver lining and the silver lining in this is that human ingenuity has created a system that allows them to communicate with others, sign language. Sign language acts as a gateway of communication for the deaf
American Sign Language, ASL or Ameslan, is a visual-gestural language of the Deaf community that was made for and by Deaf people. It is visual due to its use of body movements rather than sounds, so receivers are using their eyes to understand what is being said. While by gestural it refers to the elements that are comprised of “specific movements and shapes of the hands and arms, eyes, face, and head and body posture” that act as the words and tone (Charlotte, pg. 1).
commonly used by Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing(DHH) people to communicate via hand gestures. American sign language (ASL) is the third most commonly used language