Hi, Richard!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

RW>  I know blindness, and am familiar with helping adults
RW>  adjust to its onset later on in life.  IT even took me
RW>  awhile to wrap my head around some of that, because I
RW>  was born this way, it's the only world I've known .


          But eventually you *did* manage to get your head around it... and you
realized the learning curve might be steep for them as well.

          Our young friend & her mother were thrilled to have an opportunity to
work on echolocation recently with a blind woman from out of town.  They'd just
attended a workshop where this woman was one of the presenters... then she took
them out to the street for a private lesson.  When one of Nora's classmates was
in a similar situation I'd often see him on the street with a sighted classroom
aide.  I think our friend & her mother learned more in just one afternoon.  :-)



AH>  contrary to some people's fears, we found she didn't
AH>  become overly dependent on sign language.  While it's
AH>  a useful skill to have in one's repertoire, the majority
AH>  of others don't understand it.  The net result, in Nora's
AH>  case, was that it faded as her oral speech improved....  :-)

RW>  This is always good, but there are many who've bothered
RW>  to learn sign.


          Yes, there are.  As teachers Dallas & I worked with students who were
learning Signed English... going into more detail here because you seem to have
some knowledge of the subject matter.  Basically, Signed English is a word-for-
word translation of everyday English.  That's the variety of sign language most
hearing people are familiar with.  Kids in school love it because they can talk
to friends on the other side of the room without making a noise.  Teachers such
as Dallas & me turn a blind eye... i.e. assuming you will pardon the expression
... because they recognize it's a project the kids are doing in another class &
one has to strike while the iron is hot.  Within a week or so, we'll be back to
confiscating notes & reading them aloud or chuckling over the fact that we have
replied to what somebody in the back row whispered to a friend across the aisle
& carried on without missing a beat.  In the room down the hall we get paid for
knowing who forgot a C#, but very few kids understand the implications....  ;-)

          The three of us also took an evening course in American Sign Language
during Nora's hospital stay after her stroke.  The instructor was a deaf person
... unlike other instructors we've had.  I noted with interest that the grammar
& word order are different, and that it's not kosher to mirror what you see the
instructor doing.  You're supposed to copy the hand signals in reverse....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)