 | British Sign Language A section designed to assist BSL students, deaf & hearing people learn sign language. Usually because they know someone deaf, are deaf, or someone in the family is deaf or has become deaf. In order to communicate effectively through sign language, certain features such as facial expression and body language need to be added to the signed communication. The only real way to develop these skills, through enrolling in a class at college, and meeting and signing with deaf sign users. A deaf club is an excellent place to learn and have fun trying. Signing yourself, and understanding someone else sign are very different disciplines. Sign language is a visual language. Hands, Mouth, Tongue, Eyebrows, Puffed/Sucked cheeks, are all part of the sign, and it takes practice to master. I remember my first sign language teacher (hi Lynne) telling the class, when you see two people sign well, it's a beautiful and poetic thing to watch. Having seen many people sign, I have to agree, It really is a beautiful language. If your new to signing, the first thing to learn is the alphabet A to Z, known as Finger spelling. (And don't forget to come to the Deaf Club on Saturday). |
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Deaf Community People who sign, generally get drawn together sooner or later. Whether hearing, hard of hearing or deaf. The deaf community have a very active social scene, and love sharing news, life experiences and stories. I have to admit I love the stories, no one can tell a story with as much feeling and emotion or pure comedy like a good deaf signer. If a hearing person is serious about learning sign language, they will be welcomed into the fold. There seems to be an unwritten code that all signers, see it as there duty to help new beginners. The deaf signers are particularly very patient with students, and this must be very frustrating and slow for them at times. You have to understand that sign language is not English, therefore a deaf signers first language is not English. Just the same as a hearing persons first language is not sign language. Deaf Culture The use of sign language as there primary language. The common experiences with fellow deaf people. The pride they hold in there deaf community and culture. The history they inherit and share, and create. The identity of belonging to a minority language. The way they do not see deafness as a disability, like the hearing community do. The common understanding of deaf art, deaf humour, theatre and poetry. Your first thought maybe, why should there be any difference! Well there is, a massive difference, for a start there has to be eye contact. Hearing people can communicate from different rooms, even upstairs to down stairs. Deaf people must have eye contact. Take a meal for example. Hearing people can communicate while eating and do not require to see each other. Deaf people must have eye contact , and need to put there knife and fork down to communicate with there hands. Pointing, touching and hand waving is considered rude in the hearing world. But is common and necessary in the deaf community. And to a hearing person, it can be a shock at first to see how direct and to the point a deaf person can be. It's safe to say that all deaf people are proud of their culture and language, and so they should be. Its been a hard struggle to get there language recognized. Even though sign language has now been recognized legally as a language, there's a long way to go yet. More people use sign language than Welsh and Gaelic. The truth is that sign language, is a language you can and will use on a regular basis. Not just when you go on holiday, like most other languages such as French and German for instance. Deaf Aware The most common conception from a hearing person, is of coarse I'm deaf aware! But until you can put yourself into a deaf persons position, the truth is no hearing person can be fully deaf aware. But we can try to understand the problems and be more deaf aware than we are now. The truth is that most will quickly shy away from a deaf person, try not too. If you make the effort, they will too. There is nothing to be afraid of, they are just deaf! If a policeman was to shout 'STOP', a deaf person would not unless they saw them, and read the lip pattern. If you ask someone to move there shopping trolley out of the way in the supermarket, and they ignored you, would you think they were just ignorant. Would the possibility of them being deaf come into your mind. If you pull round a corner in your car and you see someone step into the road. You automatically think they were not paying attention, if your honest with yourself. You probley would not even consider that they may be deaf or hard of hearing. Imaging waiting for a train in the station, and you can't hear the announcements. Or in the airport, or doctors. Both use tannoy announcements to inform people. How about hearing the fire alarm, or the message, this store is now closing. The truth is that this world, our society is geared up for the hearing culture. Unfortunately this means that the deaf among us, are at a disadvantage before they even start. Communication Tactics Face them, they need to see your face Slow down , but don't go too slow. Voice speakers can be very fast without realizing it. Simply make sure you mouth each word in a normal talking rhythm. Don't shout , this makes a hearing aid wearer climb the walls, and it distorts your mouth pattern. Rephrase , if they can't understand what your saying then rephrase it in another way. Context , set the topic first, so they know what your talking about. (i.e holidays). Let them know if your changing the topic. Expressions , use your normal facial expressions, surprise, happy, sad, these show the tone of a what's being said. And the size of things. Body language , feel free to show how you feel with your body posture, folded/open arm's etc. Mime , such as smoking, digging ironing. Finger spell , fantastic for thoughs hard words and names. Write , but be careful on this one, many deaf people do not read or write as well as you, or at all. This can be embarrassing. Never , say "Oh never mind" or "It doesnt matter", if they don't understand you. Try again. Smile , your communicating with another human, enjoy even if it's a little scary at first. It gets easier. Communicating with the hard of hearing Back ground noise is the main problem, it masks out normal speech. Anything from lots of people talking in a room, to music playing or the TV on in the back ground will make hearing almost impossible. If a person has an hearing aid fitted in one ear, its almost certain that's the best ear of the two. Sit on the same side as the hearing aid and have your conversation. Face to face conversations are useful if you can use normal speech without shouting. Shouting distorts the sounds and moves your mouth patterns into unrecognizable garbage. Many deaf and hard of hearing use lip patterns to confirm what you have just said. Its more useful to use normal speech with good facial expressions, so the person can understand a good, bad, happy, sad, angry, expression or emotion that you are trying to convey. If you know lip patterns are being used then try to ensure your background is correct. For example if your stood in front of window with the sun shine glaring through is obviously bad practice. While a good light on your face is important, so where possible sit in a well lit area. Especially when you know your going to be there for a while, say during a meal or interview for example. Make sure you have the persons attention before you start talking, speak with a normal voice at a moderate pace. Try not to let your speech fade away at the end of a sentence, which many people do because they are running out of air. If they have trouble understanding some thing then try to say it in a different way, rephrase it. When you change the subject, indicate the new topic of conversation if you can with a topical phrase and possible visible gesture. Do not obscure your mouth with your hands, cigarette, pen or chew gum. (big beards or moustaches don't help either). Try not to become impatient with a difficult conversation, stay calm and relaxed. this will put the other person at ease and allow them to relax and concentrate on what your saying better. If there is a group of people always talk with a hard of hearing person, and not about them in their presence. Communicating with the deaf It goes without saying that the majority of what is said in the above section also applies to the deaf too. The first language for people who are born deaf is not english. Its usually sign language. But each person have their own preference on how they will communicate with the hearing world. Some rely on lip reading, some only with sign language, and others with both. Or even pen and paper, but some would see that as an insult. You have to understand that english is not there first language, and many do not read or write well, or at all. Thankfully deaf schools now, are up to speed and give the younger deaf generation a far better change. But in the past, being deaf was very difficult, because the hearing world simply did not understand. If a situation like a hospital appointment, mortgage arraignments, legal advice etc. are needed then an trained interpreter may well be needed. These such meeting or interviews will take longer than a normal discussion, so allow extra time before its started. You may have to attract the deaf persons attention by waving or pointing your hands, or maybe a slight tap on the shoulder for example. Or tap the table or stamp on a floor, as vibration can be felt just as good. Turning the lights on and off is very good tool, if there is more than one deaf person present. The best solution is of coarse, for more people to learn sign language . Statistics It's estimated that nearly 9 million people in Britain are deaf or hard of hearing. (about 14% of the population) About 8.5 million are hard of hearing. That's a ratio of 1 in 7 of the UK population that is hard of hearing. There are around 23,000 deaf blind people in the UK alone. Three out of every 1000 baby's born will be deaf. One in every thousand will be profoundly deaf. 840 children are born deaf every year in the UK on average Six children out of every 1000 will require special support in their education, because they are deaf. About 10% of children born to deaf parents will also be deaf. The other 90% of deaf baby's are born to hearing parents. About 23 thousand children up to the age of fifteen wear a hearing aid. There are about 120 thousand people from teenage to retirement age that have become deafened. One third of people aged 60 to 70, have a hearing loss,. Three quarters of people over 70 years of age have hearing loss. But as the average age of the british population increases, we can expect a greater percentage of the population to become hard of hearing or deaf. 10% of adults have experienced Tinnitus. (buzzing ringing or whistling in the ear) It's estimated that about 70,000 deaf people in Britain use sign language as their first language. There are estimated to be 23,000 deaf blind people in the UK. 15,000 of these are over 70 years old. Around 2 million hearing aids are owned in the UK, only 1.4 million people actually use them regularly. Another 3 million people would benefit from using hearing aids, but don't. Even the best lip readers only get about 35% of what is said, the rest is guess work. Lip reading songs is next to impossible though. There are about 800 centres in the UK that run BSL courses. Over 100,000 people have taken CACDP level 1 BSL exam in the UK. Deaf People in this area as of 1998 Birmingham 157,000 Coventry 48,000 Dudley 50,000 Sandwell 48,000 Solihull 31,000 Walsall 39,000 Wolverhampton 38,000 Grand Total of 411,000 Decibel levels (db) 0 - Quietest Sound 20 - Leaves Falling 50 - Speech 70 - Orchestra 80 - Heavy Traffic/Main Road 100 - Loud Radio 110 - Rock Concert/Thunder 130 - Jet taking off 140 - Damage to hearing Levels of deafness Mild hearing Loss (20-40db) Difficulty hearing speech, especially in a room with a lot of people talking. Moderate hearing loss (40-70db) Difficulty understanding speech, an hearing aid would help but not in a noisy environment. Lip reading skills at this level are a great advantage. Severe hearing loss (70-95db) Have difficulty following speech even with an hearing aid, so lip-reading is very important. Sign language very important at this stage of hearing loss. Use of normal telephone not possible. Profound hearing loss (95 & higher db) Hearing aids of little or no help, lip-reading highly used together with sign language. Stone deaf (nothing) Use sign language and lip-reading. BSL British Sign Language is a unique language with its own visual vocabulary and grammar. As the emotion, loudness or softness of a signed word can't be heard, the user will express these via body language and gestures. So that the true meaning can be conveyed correctly. True BSL is a topical language, as the topic will be raised first. Then the detail will follow. As with all languages new words and names evolve all the time, and as with the spoken word. Sign has regional variations too. (English would be a second language) SSE Stands for Signed Supported English. This is not classed as a language, but uses signs from BSL and puts them is english word order. It's useful with people who know english (not deaf from birth) and will assist lipreading people. But is far harder to understand in general use, because the topic of conversation has not been outlined first. (English would be a first language) Conductive Deafness (Muffled sounds) Starts in the outer ear, such as wax build up. Or possibly problems in the middle ear, such as damage to the ear drum, or fluid in the ear. Perceptive Deafness (Distorted sounds) This is an inner ear problem, usually the hair cells of the cochlea are wearing away. (Old age) Other symptoms could be caused by infection from things such as Measles, Rubella, Meningitis or possible passed on genetically. Frequency Deafness This type of deafness makes different sounds easier or harder to understand, depending on what frequency range they can hear. The sounds " oooohhh " and " aaaarrrhh " maybe easier to hear because they are a higher frequency. Sounds like " ssssshhhh " and " ffffffffff " maybe more difficult to hear because they are a lower frequency and closer to background noise. .  bsl sign language students at http://www.rod-parrott.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk | |
