Who's Listening?

A Child With Hearing Loss in a Regular Education Classroom

Sign Language

Many Deaf people use sign language as a means to communicate. Sign Language is the use of hands, facial expressions and some sounds to express words and concepts.

Fingerspelling can be used to spell out individual words, or signs can be made with one or both hands to convey words or concepts. Many of the signs visually resemble their meaning, as in the sign for hat where you tap your hand on your head. Other words can be traced back to their roots as in

Many signs have more than one English word that they can represent. For example the sign for hurt can also mean pain or ache. On the other hand some english words have multiple meaning and each meaning is signed differently. The word "run" could be used as a verb as in "run down the street" or "nose is running" or as a noun as in "run in your stocking." These are signed differently based on their conceptual meaning. Their written form remains the same and can result in comprehension problems the first time encountered, for example one student read "The warrior was unarmed." and thought that he had one arm because he had never encountered "arm" as meaning "weapon."

Because of these differences English language and vocabulary can be greatly affected, however innate intelligence is not. A student's written work may demonstrate difficulty with English grammar. This does not indicate a lack of understanding of the material. The hearing support teacher is available to help the student with written assignments.

Try your hand at learning a few signs.

copyright 2002 Cheryl Briggs
last revised August, 2002
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