Posted on Mar 14, 2013 by paul
The term “Hearing Impaired” is offensive? “Hearing Impaired” was once considered to be the politically correct term for someone who is Deaf or Hard of Hearing, but has since fallen out of favor. The word “impaired” is being used less and less to describe people, and rightfully so as “impaired” is defined as “weakened, diminished, […]
Read MorePosted on Mar 14, 2013 by paul
American Sign Language is the same as English? Actually, ASL and English are very different. ASL has its own linguistic structure, slang, and even idioms. One of the easiest ways to show the difference between ASL and English is to look at the way a sentence is set up. In English, we use the Subject-Verb-Object-Temporal […]
Read MorePosted on Jan 31, 2013 by paul
Myth #1: American Sign Language is Universal. American Sign Language is not universal. This myth is often shared by the majority of the hearing community. American Sign Language is learned by the majority of the Deaf community in North America. In addition, there are other countries that have adopted American Sign Language as their form […]
Read MorePosted on Jan 09, 2013 by paul
Is American Sign Language universal? A common assumption about American Sign Language is that it is universal. This is, in fact, false. Just as spoken language has many variations, so does sign language. Many of the variations are members of related families of languages and many are independent of any other influences. Some of the […]
Read MorePosted on Dec 13, 2012 by paul
What is it like to “hear” a hand? You have to be deaf to understand! What is it like to be a small child, In a school, in a room void of sound — With a teacher who talks and talks and talks; And then when she does come around to you, She expects you […]
Read MorePosted on Oct 26, 2012 by paul
First, we’re back! August was a bit of a vacation month with exciting things happening at ASLdeafined, which you’ll be hearing about via our upcoming newsletter and blogs. Meanwhile though, did you know that American Sign Language, just with any other language, changes over time? This can really Jargogle people, especially first time learners. But […]
Read MorePosted on Aug 10, 2012 by paul
As you work through American Sign Language lessons and read up on Deaf Culture, it is important to remember that deaf people have a sense of humor, too! Whatever aspect of deaf life you may be exploring, you should never forget to treat deaf individuals the same way you would your own friends and family. […]
Read MorePosted on Jul 20, 2012 by paul
In our blogs we have often used the term Deaf Culture, but that takes on a little different meaning if you just add the word “Pop” in between. There are certain very recognizable celebrities in Deaf Pop Culture, such as the famous actress Marlee Matlin, who has starred in a successful film version of Children […]
Read MorePosted on Jul 13, 2012 by paul
Perhaps in a future blog entry we will extend the topic of deafness to the animal kingdom. For this entry, we wanted to highlight what the animal kingdom does for the Deaf. As you may have guessed, there are indeed service dogs for the Deaf. Paws with a Cause is one of the organizations that […]
Read MorePosted on Jun 29, 2012 by paul
The title of this blog is actually a little play on words, because it is literally about the myth (or perhaps, reality) surrounding the idea that if one sense is missing, others will be enhanced. There are a lot of differing opinions and studies that attempt to address this issue. Rather than attempt to cover […]
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