Silence Essay, Research Paper

Imagine what it would be like not being able to hear what is going on around you. Most of the people, in this world live in a world of sounds, and these people often take them for granted. Nevertheless, we completely depend on sounds to get through our everyday lives. Although the majority of people in this world can hear the sounds around them, there are people in this world that are not able to hear anything at all. For those that cannot hear and for those that are hearing impaired, they have developed ASL. “American Sign Language is a complex, visual-spatial language that is used by the deaf community (Nakumara, 1).”

American Sign Language has been around for as long as there have been deaf people. In 1817 two individuals, named “Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc created the first official school for the Deaf in the United States” (Carlson, 1). After the school was opened and certain standards were set in the United States, ASL quickly spread throughout Canada. Canada too followed these same standards. This form of sign language was big and would be the basis of the language for years to come.

ASL offers the deaf people of this world an opportunity to communicate. Just like the English language has nouns, verbs and adjectives, so does ASL. Despite the fact that both the languages share the same nouns, verbs and adjectives, this does not mean that they use the same grammatical similarities (Nakumara, 1). In the English language, a person speaks words and writes words. With ASL, most communication is in the form of hand gestures and is written in brail. Included with the hand gestures, it is necessary to use facial expression, such as raising an eyebrow or smiling because these expressions can be a very important part of the communication. Without using these facial expressions, feeling can definitely be lossed in the meaning of what the person speaking may be trying to get across.

The deaf people of the society find it hard to believe that those that hear can take such a privilege for granted. These people have complaints about hearing and should realize that not everyone has been as lucky as them when it comes to hearing. Noise pollution should not be what these people are worried about. The hearing should be grateful that they could hear at all.

Of course not all hearing have been so ungrateful. There are people in this world that have taken on learning to sign just so that they might be able to communicate with those that are deaf, or even to just teach those that cannot hear. To learn how to sign there are programs offered.

There is a place named the Center for Speech and Language Disorders, which offers professional speech and language services, including evaluation and treatment for children and young adults with communication disorders. The center also conducts scientific research related to the nature, treatment and prevention of speech and language disorders. The center is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing treatment at or below of service to all children in need, regardless of ability to pay.

CSLD started out of a small office in Elmhurst, Illinois and quickly evolved into a nationally renowned center.

At first only offering a few different programs, now offering speech and language evaluation and therapy, social language group treatment, social-motor group treatment, educational therapy, occupational therapy evaluations and treatment, and many more (). “The Center for Speech and Language Disorders is and internationally recognized leader in the diagnosis and treatment of hyperlexia and other language disorders” (). CSLD has been around for over 21 years and is still growing rapidly and offering many programs.

Not only does the CSLD offer programs for the hearing impaired or the deaf, but they also offer volunteer programs for those who would like to help the people in need. Volunteers can help teach classes or do other things. Most of all the volunteers are exemplifying great character and experiencing a great feeling when helping out the deaf community.

Some other issues that the deaf community might face are two deaf parents, having a hearing child, or two hearing parents having a deaf child. In the case of the deaf parents having a hearing child, the parents must find a way to teach their child how to sign. Since the child is just a child, it will be easy for the child to learn how to sign because that would be their only form of communication. On the other hand, it would be difficult for the child to speak since they would not be hearing their parents talk. The children would have to learn from the TV, or they might have to wait to go to school to learn. In the case of two hearing parents giving birth to a deaf child, it would be much harder for the communication process, because the parents have gone all of their lives using the communication process of speaking. The parents would now have to go and learn how to sign and it would be quite difficult considering they are trying to learn something new at such a later stage in their lives. In both cases, it would be a difficult, but learning experience.