"The Signing Family"
Goals for the reading assignment:
Preface: This book is designed for parents with deaf children who are trying to sort through the myriad conflicting views on how to properly raise a deaf child. As you read this book try to imagine yourself a parent with an unexpected deaf child. How do you evaluate this information?
Assignment:
Follow the course schedule for assignment dates and pages.
Respond to the questions posted below and turn in on the due date.
You all have access to computers and word-processing software and so I
will request that you type
your responses.
Keep your responses succinct; I expect those assignments to be no more than three pages long.
The Signing Family # 1
Response Questions for Pages 1 - 51 - This book is obviously written for parents with deaf children. For this assignment imagine that you are a parent with a deaf infant and you are reading this book looking for help. What are your reactions to these first three chapters? Answer these four questions:
1. What advice or information strikes you as particularly insightful or helpful?
2. What advice or information is confusing or do you disagree with?
3. What is missing? What more information do you want to know?
4. Would you recommend this book to another parent? Why?
The Signing Family # 2
Response Questions for Pages 52 - 102 - By now you have probably watched and/or read about the many (and sometimes conflicting) philosophies and approaches to education and communication with deaf children. Hopefully you are realizing how overwhelmingly complicated and confusing it can become for parents try to do the "right thing". You might also be adjusting or confirming your own opinions about the matter. Good! And hopefully you are realizing that any literature, videotape, or resource needs to be viewed with informed and critical eyes.
1) On page 66 the author writes: "There are a number of reasons why parents may want their children to learn ASL. A primary reason is that many deaf children learn ASL more easily than any other form of signed communication, provided they are exposed to it."
Later, on page 100, the author writes: "Betsy and Kevin have listened to the criticisms of SEE: that it is too hard to watch, too complicated to learn, ...Yet they find SEE easier to watch than ASL because English is their first language ... This is true for the (deaf) children, too, and the neighbors and the hearing children at school."
Based on your current knowledge and experiences, comment upon these seemingly paradoxical statements (don't duck out and say you don't know enough).
2) A. What is the "two out of three rule"? How would you apply it to this sentence: Boy! That girl is mean!
B. How do you sign this sentence in SEE? How do you sign it in ASL? ( Ask your teachers or TAs or friends for any signs you need.)
C. After you determine how to sign the two sentences, and using your knowledge and experience at this point, provide some of your thoughts or perceptions regarding ASL and SEE?
The Signing Family # 3
Response Questions for Pages 103 - 155
1. On page 111 the author states: "The main reason parents learn to use an MCE system is to model English language word order to their deaf children." Later, on page 112, the author states: "Signed English is designed to move from a word-for-word modeling of English...to a more natural type of signing that resembles ASL."
a. What
does "MCE" stand for?
b. Why would the SE developers want to drop the "English" structures and
replace them with ASL structures?
c. Based on information from the previous sections in the book, does the
author give a different reason why parents learn an MCE system other than to
model English to their children?
2. On page
124 the author states: "(Contact Signing) is used by a majority of the teachers
of deaf children in their everyday interactions with students."
On page 119 the author states: "...does (Contact Signing's) incomplete
representation of both English and ASL make it a poor language model for deaf
children? Certainly, more research is needed before we can assess the influence
of contact signing on the language development of deaf children."
Based on what you have learned about signing systems and deaf education - how is it that the signing system that is most often used in the classroom is the system that least provides a language model for deaf children? What might you predict to be the potential repercussions?
3. Scenario: Two deaf students are attending the same elementary school and grade in a small rural town. They are the only deaf students in the school district. At an IEP conference for deaf student #1, who has a cochlear implant, the parents insist that the teacher not use any sign language in the classroom as it will impede the child's auditory progress. At an IEP conference for deaf student #2, who has deaf grandparents, the parents insist that ASL or Contact Signing be used.
Based on the information provided in the book about the laws regarding education of deaf children, what might the school recommend to resolve the conflict?