OMG, I just pictured that and it made me smile. Thanks!

I feel like it comes down to a lack of education about Deaf Culture and how different people who are Deaf/deaf it. People don't understand, and I (as a hearing person) have had to learn that (as part of learning ASL)

People who are able bodied and don't have any real contact with disabled people often develop a form of misguided and misplaced empathy and sympathy and so they think it's sad that a child can't hear just like they think a child who can't walk is a sad situation. "Having to be disabled", in this mindset, is something to be pitied.

I mean it's not only adorable but it will definitely come in handy as they grow older!

IIRC, is one of the 'early bits' of supporting evidence that the brain completely accepts sign languages as a full on valid language. Audio/verbal not necessary. I'd love to share one of my favorite examples of baby sign language babbling: in American Sign Language, the sign for ducks is using the index and middle fingers together with the thumb on one hand to make the 'quacking' motion by the cheek close to mouth. This toddler was familiar with this sign via books etc. Always used one hand. Visiting a pond with many ducks, he was in awe.. then looking over the masses of ducks, he started using the sign for duck with both hands(one hand on each cheek).. that was his babbling way of using ducks in the plural. It was the cutest thing ever!

While both me and my wife are fluent in English and we live in Scotland now we will definitely teach our bairn Dutch so she can more easily communicate with her grandparents. Plus indeed learning extra languages has a LOT of cognitive and developmental advantages. Unfortunately I don't learn new things that easily any more due to my own impairments but already being able to speak multiple languages makes it easier for me to pick up new ones as well. I hope to add sign language to my repertoire to be more inclusive. And after Dutch sign language will definitely be the third language we teach our bairn, before any of the other ones we already know. ps. I'm hoping to add my view here from an perspective of being inclusive. As I'm not D/deaf myself my voice isn't the one that deserves to be amplified though. Feel free to ignore this comment.

I live in a city with a lot of people from all over the world. Some of the kids that live in extended family groups grow up with English and also their grandparents' home language so by the time they get to infant school they are already bilingual. It seems to put them ahead in terms of learning more new languages on top, as well as other skills. Plus, my kids used to come home with some songs and games in other languages (and swear words!) So more power to your elbow!

That is often Said by people who never Had to learn another language. I live in scotland and would definetely teach my children German because its frigging useful. But a Lot of people dont want immigrants to do that and instead "learn proper english". Those people then try to say that If you learn two languages, you will fail at both, which is such Bs. My charitable Interpretation is that people who never honestly had to be bilingual cannot Imagine actually succeeding in language learning. It's funny because it Just Shows that they never bothered learning a language properly, despite french and German being taught frequently

@@annabeinglazy5580 Yeah anyone who says if you try to learn two languages at once you'll fail at both probably isn't bilingual. As someone who grew up in a bilingual household, it's very much possible and I'm forever grateful to both be able to communicate with my extended family and carry on such an important part of my culture.

THATS ADORABLE

Omg so cute!!!

I started learning a few basic signs to communicate in extremely loud environments without having to yell into people's ears, but was really surprised how intuitive it was compared to learning a spoken language, which I am terrible at. Definitely can't hold a conversation in sign, but I retain the information so much easier than trying to learn Spanish. Had a deaf customer years ago at my sandwich job and he was stoked I could at least make an attempt

Look up 'You Need Me, I Don't Need You' by Ed Sheeran. The main focus of the video is an actor by the name of Matthew Jacobs Morgan - his parents are both deaf and he is hearing, but he signs the entire song and does an AMAZING job. He is also fluent in French and German. Start them young in multiple languages, and I do consider signing whole other language. It'll be nothing but helpful in school.

My mom is hoh and I had to call so many places growing up because phones really weren't accessible back in the day and my mom doesn't use or know sign language because she really doesn't quite need it with how much hearing she still has in every day life. I had to learn how to sound professional and relay information at a very young age and honestly that was a good thing because I later never struggled to do that kind of stuff for myself. Some people were and still are weird about my mom's disability though and that also made me quickly sus out people and learn who I want around me and who isn't good to have as friends.

Gallaudet*

I honestly don't understand why it's not a subject in primary school at this point. Deaf children shouldnhave the same access to other citizen. Teaching kids sign laguages would work into that (as well as being super useful in situation when yelling from one side of the room to the other isn't possible)

I think that part was hearing parents of deaf children. Instead of learning sign and teaching it to their child, they force the kid to learn to lip-read. Which is hard enough if you already know the language, but makes learning a language very hard because you only have mouth shapes to go on, and a lot of sounds make the same shape.

to someone who doesn't know shit about sign language read this comment with the translation makes my heart warm... how cute it is pls I cannot

That's so lovely to read! I have a similar story with my now 9yo kid, sign was such a game changer for the communication to exist at all ♡ makes me happy to hear your son is doing well growing up!

I know what echolalia is but I still thought you were saying that that was the word he’d repeat over and over lol

Autism? It’s interesting how autism can affect everyone differently. I have autism and I started speaking at a regular age and learnt how to read earlier than other kids.

@@rachelcookie321 i was the same way, in fact i think i potentially started speaking, reading and writing earlier than a lot of kids too. however once i hit 14yrs old most of my traits showed up a lot more often and more debilitating, like my sensory issues. by the age of 16 i was having nonverbal shutdowns and couldnt communicate at all, not even through texting or writing. i personally wish i could sign to help with that but due to my other disabilities (chronic pain in my wrists) it is not really possible to make most of the movements for auslan

@@kaelin8775 yea, for me I started showing symptoms of autism when I started puberty at age 10. It went down hill real fast. When I’m upset I can’t communicate at all, I don’t know how show what I feel. My mum got me these cards that say different things that you can show when you’re upset but that just made me angry because it’s not just that I struggle to say what I want, I can’t communicate it in any way. Then I got angry and I couldn’t say why I didn’t like them so I just squealed and threw them where I will never see them.

Agree with you. 🙂

Yes! My babysitter’s daughter was losing her hearing and my sitter taught us kids the alphabet and a few basic signs just in case. I was under 10 at the time and now at 31 I still remember almost all of it! Vs the four years of Spanish I took in high school that I only recall bits and pieces of 😅 I wish they offered languages for school children!

@@peterfireflylund yes learning a language is hard but from my experience of working in schools for 20+ years, if you are enthusiastic and make it interesting they want to learn more, teaching yr 10/11 some sign has been fun and them stopping me in the corridor to sign something they learnt in their lesson makes my heart sing. Also some students who struggle with the curriculum could find this a better way and style of learning. I personally think there is a place for any language, sign, French Spanish Mandarin ect and I think it shows respect for a person/ culture if you try to communicate in their native tongue, I know when I go to a different country I try to say some basics in the language of the country- not always successfully!

@@peterfireflylund kids often learn new languages a lot faster than adults and there’s no harm in knowing two languages or more.

@@peterfireflylund fully learning a language is a lot of work, but learning at least basic vocabulary can be helpful.

Bless you! That must have been distressing :( Someone should have offered you a letter board at least. Good on the student nurse, what a perfect timing for her to be there on that placement. I imagine others in hospital would have also been able to help esp with simple finger spell - but again someone needs to think to go find out who or have a list. I'm a doctor can sign BSL & use w Deaf patients. Although trying to get back to better fluency & learn more med words too. In mean time obvs still want them to have proper comm vis interpretor.

In the US at least, every hospital that gets federal funding must have access to and offer interpreters for languages common in that community, as well as ASL. Larger hospitals or medical groups have more languages, especially in areas with a lot of immigrants because it can be hard to define what languages are "common" if they're always fluctuating. For patients who speak languages outside of what that hospital has, they have to get an interpreter on the phone. Tons of places have rolling monitors that can use to video chat an interpreter now! The interpreter should be trained as a MEDICAL interpreter, not just someone who can translate the language. They're specially trained to communicate all of the complicated medical jargon properly between languages. That's part of why they have to offer an interpreter even if a patient comes in with a family member who can translate.

I do that when I dissociate and/or meltdown (PTDS, CPTSD, DID, which aren't helped by autism) and can't talk in any spoken language I know anymore For some reason, I can almost always still communicate in sign language even though mine is a bit rusty now (removing the rust by teaching my partner useful signs, like medicine, pain, nightmare, water, etc.) and it actually helps me to come back myself faster too, as I feel it overrides the flashes/emotions

When I was a kid I learned about ASL and finger spelling and while I did learn some signs that stick with me today, the thing I made myself learn was to finger spell because absolute worst case, if I needed to communicate with someone we'd have that. It's slow and you're relying on spelling skills but at the same time it is better than nothing and you'd be shocked how many times I have actually used it in my life to communicate to others.

I want to individually 👍 every single point that you made!

agree with the above comment! all of this is lovely

Wow that's so so awesome to hear! I'm in nz too, and I love hearing about that natural flow between the languages and it sounds like the kids got really into it? They are great like that supporting each other when a class builds momentum

okay maybe a weird question but... how do you monitor cheating when you know that a lot/all students of a class can speak (?) /sign sign language ? :D I was just wondering. I mean of course a lot of movement would also make sound but when one student asks a question and the teacher goes there to help, couldn't others behind them sign answers to each other. (not saying that I judge them for that, just wondering if this is something you then need to think about :D)

@@Renesmechen they’re 7. I don’t know how it works in other countries but in NZ at that age there isn’t much large scale testing. It’s mostly done on a person to person basis

@@Renesmechen so I also follow the DOTS project which provides braille dice for blind/visually impaired tabletop-game players. they also had to deal with some bad-faith criticism along the lines of "What if the player cheats with the braille dice?", because hearing children who don't know sign language never cheat on tests and seeing players never cheat at games.

@@scarylion1roar I don't mind if people cheat on exams 'cause I honestly don't think they are the best way to test people about knowledge. I myself cheated a lot. I was just wondering if there are extra measurements teachers would think of. Teachers at my school tried different ways to stop us from cheating but they only made us more creative. Honestly it was just a new challenge. So I just wonder if the kids in those classes could use their knowledge and if the teachers tried to do something about it. However if they were around the age of 7 I doubt they would do that. I just hope you don't think I wanted to say that I think they are more likely to cheat cause of something. It's just something I would totally use for myself, that's why my mind went there.

I love the phrasing “when your emotions are bigger than you are”, because that’s happened to me quite a lot as a petite autistic woman with ADHD.

Agreed! I had a deaf mother and child come in and I couldn't communicate and I felt awful. As well as families who spoke other languages I didn't know.

Even if you’d learned sign language, though, you’d have only learned one particular sort of sign language and there are dozens if not hundreds.

@@SamyTheBookWorm Then learn the one that’s most prevalent where you live.

there are several sign languages by countries just like speaking languages.... therefore it's not universal either.

@@danone2414 I live in the Netherlands in a province called Friesland. Friesland has its own language separate from the language used in the rest of the country. We were taught Frisian in school but not dutch sign language. And I can tell you that there are more deaf people in my country than Frisians. (400.000 people speaking Frisian while there are 1.5 million hard hearing to deaf people.) We are sadly not taught sign language in school and can actually only officially learn it from universities or expensive courses. Also even though sign language differs per country, there are a lot of contextual clues and similarities. You can get by in another country, more than any spoken language. I don't know if you intended to agree or disagree with the main comment and I apologize if it sounds a bit on the mean side. It is mainly frustration that I would have loved to learn sign language instead of Frisian.

My sister also learned baby sign because she had a hard time learning to speak. As she got older, she could speak and wanted to, but she had trouble getting the words out and would stutter. Baby sign (while obviously not a real sign language) helped her a lot as a small baby. She would get really frustrated and cry when she couldn’t get the words out, so it helped a lot. Eventually she went to a speech therapist in school who helped her learn how to essentially get the words out and she didn’t need baby sign anymore. While I understand that it can be disrespectful to deaf people to use a “fake” form of sign language, it really does help some people who are hearing but need a little assistance early on

My niece and nephews were taught basic signs, and I can confirm that it helps significantly! Even just being able to communicate "I'm done" alone, has a huge impact on meltdowns. Almost like kids benifit from being understood, just like adults do, lol

@@battyboo3732 Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't teaching them sign language directly work just as well for the same purposes? /gen

@@jadziajan My daughter's speech therapist explained that the modified signs (or just plain made up ones) for baby sign language are for resolving issues like Jessica described with Rupert and signing "mama." There are some signs that are more difficult for babies/ toddlers to do, and so they've modified them for ease of learning. However, they aren't very beneficial for kids if the only people who understand them are the baby and the caregiver, so in speech therapy settings, the signs taught are predominantly ASL The majority of signs my daughter knows (more, milk, sleep, thank you, all done, help, so on and so forth) are ASL signs. She has modified signs for a few words (like using one hand to sign for jacket instead of two) but predominantly she is using and learning ASL.

I have autism (and audio processing disorder) and I have a few friends who go non verbal at least some of the time. They use sign and I don't know any, but now I'm thinking it would be a good idea to. Reading sign means I wouldn't necessarily have to mask as much which is always a plus.

Yes it happens so much. Abelism is so interwoven in our society we do not realise until it is pointed out to us.

This. There are deaf and HOH individuals on TikTok who are children of hearing parents, and literally no one in the household does sign language with them. I think it's because at one point, it was thought to be "harmful" to not force a deaf/hard of hearing kid into pretending like they can hear. Such utter bullshit, no difference than forcing left-handed individuals to write with their right hands (as if that fucking matters).

I’m also autistic. Very recently diagnosed but it took a long time. It’s exhausting I understand you and days are filled with trying to get by, overcome, adapt rather than live or enjoy.. you know? I try to believe it will get better over the years as understanding becomes better. But also I wish people made that effort themselves sometimes to understand.. I’m being unclear. I found my friends accept me the most, people who are younger. ♥️ You’re doing the best you can and you deserve to be considered more by those around you (although annoying, people just do not realise what they’re expecting of you is so emotionally and physically taxing. Although that is just reason for them to listen ... hmm). I wish you the best.

I wonder if trying out sign language with your daughter could help, because you would be using facial expressions & eye contact? Also, though, I wouldn’t worry. Your daughter is going to have a whole world of people to connect with. The idea that your neurodivergence could “mess her up” somehow seems very unlikely to me. In the beginning kids tend to mimic their parents, but they grow out of that pretty quickly. You probably know plenty of people who are very, very different from their parents. Sometimes deliberately so. (Ie: my mom used to always be late so I get to places ahead of time so I’m never late) That’s not to suggest your daughter is going to look down on you or anything. I’m just saying that kids don’t just learn how to behave from one person. They take everything into account and figure out what works best for them and their personality. I have ADHD too, by the way! Someone suggested I might be on the spectrum, but I doubt that’s the case. Even so, I get along really well with people who are. Thanks for sharing your feelings with us!

@@AK-jt7kh thank you for the encouragement. It's not been easy at times ( money issues on top of everything). I just found out I'm pregnant again so you've definitely made my day.

i’m on the spectrum too (not diagnosed until adolescence!) and i was good at learning signs and really gravitated towards communicating with it when i was a baby/toddler. didn’t know it was the ‘tism back then but probably really helped my parents with communication even though i was never quite nonverbal. really cool to see how diverse the spectrum is!

Oddly enough watching this video it hit me why I was never successful at learning sign language. I have aphantasia so when someone signs to me I only see the sign in that instance and then it’s gone. On the other hand, honestly if I had a child who was deaf I would make sure they learned sign. Unfortunately we’d have to figure out a way to communicate as trying to remember signs actually gives me a headache like everything else I try to picture, but enabling a child to communicate is the most important.

@@elizaRose8900 No biggie - you’ve got this! I know you’ll find a way. It’s rough….but you don’t need a ton of money to raise happy kids. Some of the happiest kids I’ve ever met came from families that had financial stress. I do feel for you - that’s rough. But at the same time, probably keep your mind on the bigger picture. Some financial struggles now don’t define the future. One day, your kids will be grown up and successful, and helping you out, and I bet they’ll respect their mom for the trials she had to go through to be the person she was for her family. For the record…my mom was really “unconventional”. I don’t think shes on the spectrum but I would not be surprised at all if people thought she was. Not only was she not very emotionally forthcoming, but she butted heads with a lot of her peers. She also didn’t keep a neat household - the place was trashed when I was growing up! Lol! But you know…none of that registers in my kid brain as “wrong” or “abnormal” because I didn’t know what was typical. She was just mom and I adored her. She used to wrap me up in a towel after a bath and sing out of tune songs to me. She was never a great mom in the “conventional” sense, but she’s been the greatest mom ever for me. She went to bat for me repeatedly when the teachers were picking on me in gradeschool. She always understood how it felt to be different and alienated. She gave me hope, confidence, and challenged my mind. Without her I definitely wouldn’t be all that I am today, and in the “typical”’ sense, she would have been considered a “terrible mom” - because she didn’t force me to do a bunch of homework, didn’t keep a routine, didn’t have a tidy house, and so on and so forth… But the skills she had were the ones I really needed. She loved me, spent time with me, paid attention to me, and gave me wise advice and life lessons. She used to drive me to school in the morning (which no other moms did so the other kids were kind of jealous about it), and we used to play games like “the price of ducks” where she would give me simple word problems with farmers and ducks and ask me to figure out how much the feed costs and stuff. She had her own unique style of parenting and it was her uniqueness that made me grow into a unique person - which made me uniquely valuable to other people later in life, because I had a way of thinking and solving problems that most people didn’t have. Motherhood is so complex, I think. You cannot predict how your children will turn out. I think the most important thing is simply that you love them genuinely in your own way, and you figure out ways to enjoy their company so you can spend time with them in a way that makes you both happy. My mom never pandered to me. We did the things she liked to do, pretty much, but seeing her happy made me happy. I can’t remember ever seriously having an issue with how frugal my parents were. Weirdly, it turned out that we had a pretty well off family - but they were very tight with cash and were careful not to spoil us or ever show us how much we actually had. In fact, my dad routinely threatened to cancel our cable or turn down our heat in the winter because finances were tight 😂 But honestly - that didn’t make me think less of them. I didn’t have much to compare it to. That was just my definition of life. Then later on, I ended up respecting them for it. I’m so glad they didn’t raise me to be pampered and spoiled. The best thing I got from them was their time. That was worth far more to me as a kid than their money. I know I’m rambling, but I did it in the hopes that you won’t worry so much about your finances. You seem resourceful - I think you’ll make due, and I absolutely believe that your kids will notice or care. Not having money doesn’t make you any less awesome as a mom. Having neurodivergence just makes you unique and cool. If you’re worried about what your kids will think of you for the things you think are issues…maybe dial back on that a bit, as kids simply don’t view the world through the comparative judgement of an adult. I think what kids notice most is the amount, and quality, of the personal time you give them. Even if you’re not a very emotional person. (My mom definitely isn’t. Lol) Funny side note on that. I just had to wake her up at nearly 12am to ask where dad was bc he’s been missing all night, and she said he was in the hospital and went back to bed. Not once did it occur to her that I might like to know that information 😂…and she was so casual about it, it made me think…and I going to one day be like “hey, mom, dads been missing, any idea where he’s at?” And she’ll be like “Oh, your dads dead! Here, have a pork chop. They’re still hot.” That’s just mom for you! My cousin and I laugh sometimes at how emotionally detached she can be! It’s just cute and funny. Just my mom being her unique mom self! I love it! You seem so cool - I think your kids will love you the way I love my mom. Just try to take care of yourself and manage the stress however you can. And when you get bogged down with the things that are depressing you…it might help you to try to look at the bigger picture and imagine your life (and kids) 5 or 10 years from now. That always helps me! Having ADHD is a hardship I can relate to…but don’t worry. I think you’ll do just fine! 💕

Removing children from their parents is rarely the best idea. Possibly that family needed education and support to understand how important sign language is and then to learn it, or even some other kind of support if they didn't have the time or capacity to care for their child properly.

That is so horrific to hear! I've worked with kids as a relief teacher and been asked to document disfunctional behaviours stemming from neglect to create a file to report parents.. Could you still contact someone official now and get a social worker to the kids family? No child deserves to be uncared for.

That is so sad but so much more common than people realise

The only direct need I have for learning sign language is that I occasionally become non-speaking, and unfortunately it wouldn’t be much help unless at least some of those closest to me were to learn sign language as well. If only I could sign rather than having to type on my phone.

@@ragnkja That would be really useful indeed. I've been thinking about just having a few signs that I can easily teach people close to me. I'm not non-verbal, but I do get overwhelmed easily (autistic), so sometimes I want to be able to respond to easy questions with signs instead of words. Just being able to sign "I'm fine, just need to sit for a bit" would already make a difference. Maybe something like that is possible? Where the people close to you know some basics?

@@AnanasAbanaan We can at least try and see how it goes, right? :)

I wish I knew asl fully because a kid my hearing would get really bad for some unknown reason. I ended up learning some like yes, no, hello, and the alphabet, but I pretty much taught myself from looking it up online. And I just learned that my grandma speaks asl almost fluently because she was a special ed teacher. I am currently learning more, but I wish someone taught me when I was little. (Something cool is that some signs are second nature to me, so when I speak I'll sign certain words and not realize :))

@@connorfrost Since languages are best learnt by using them, maybe you could try video chatting with your grandmother using ASL?

I think what he's doing counts bc his mothers can understand him... Just like a speaking baby's first word can be mispronounced

my sister counts her eldest daughter's first word as "shoes" because it was the first thing she verbalized that was understood and wasn't just a name - mama, dada, baba (for brother). but the thing is, i've seen the video - she was young enough that it came out like "sooz", not "shoes". it still very much counts as her first word though because, despite the _technical_ error, it was still understood and did approximate the proper word. (almost) no kid's first word is perfectly pronounced, but if it's close enough to be understood 🤷🏻‍ why not? tl;dr they could almost definitely found some of his signs as "first words" already. they might not choose to until he's cot the hand shapes down a bit more, but that's up to them. this is much the same as determining any kid's "first" spoken word

I do too sometimes and it helps a ton, I highly recommend it! Also, it is a beautiful language and I feel like everybody would profit learning it.

I also have this problem. You're making me want to try learning sign language.

Welp she just said she sort of hates baby sign 🤷🏽‍♀️

@@grayonthewater I think the point was that it was stopped after the child (mainly hearing) learnt to talk, because it was normally used to prevent toddler tantrums. The Community Interest Company I am volunteering for is to support special needs children and their families, so the point is to teach them a life skill. And, if I'm completely honest, the group I am doing I think it is more Mackaton than baby sign, but I get where she is coming from.

@@grayonthewater did you want someone to just cancel volunteering instead? Jessica says that there's no point in knocking down people who are trying.

@@liriodendronlasianthus Thank you, like I say, it is probably more Mackaton based than baby sign, but it is with a CIC for children with additional needs, so, as I said, it isnt just to avoid toddler tantrums

As an autistic adult (who dearly wishes that she and those closest to her knew Norwegian Sign Language) I hope you’re continuing to use sign language so that if/when he’s temporarily non-speaking he still has a way to communicate without having to resort to writing. It’s frustrating when my voice isn’t cooperating and I can’t get anything nuanced across unless I take the time to write it on my phone.

i like your enthusiasm but sign languages are separate, fully developed languages, not dialects of the same language. Think of it like the way that American and British are dialects of English, whereas BSL and ASL aren’t even in the same language family and not mutually intelligible. There ARE dialects of sign, like ASL regional accents (I’m from the south and sign slower, farther away from my body, and with certain different signs than ppl in say, DC or NY) and arguably sign languages in the same family like LSQ and ASL, but that doesn’t mean all sign languages are dialects of the same thing. The best way to respect sign is to respect them as fully developed languages they are, not conflatable dialects :)

@@katiwithoutthee Sorry, I’m in a major fibro flare, will edit.

@@katiwithoutthee I was actually confused (?) when, in m late childhood or early teenahe, I learned that people from different countries don't all sign in the same language. Imagine how cool it would be to be able to communicate with someone from a different part of the globe, because you both know *THE* sign language. Of course once I learned more about linguistics and understood iti was evolutionary rather than revolutionary, I understood, that sign languages must have developed independently, and the fact that you can have dialects within the same country, with partially different signs, just reinforced that realization. Now, my problem. I want to learn sign language, not only because it's an efficient way to communicate with a hard of hearing or a deaf person, but also because I love languages and honestly? Being able to speak with your hands is pretty useful. And can save your life if for some reason you're unable to speak. But then ye old good pandemics hit and it became basically impossible to sign up for a course (I'd prefer not learn it and not die, thank you very much). And I also think about moving to another country in the future and I'm afraid I would get confused knowing bits of one and learning another one on top of that. Not to mention I have no use cases for it rn, as I don't know anyone who uses it, and I need the sense of purpose and opportunities to use the skill I'm learnung or I'll just drop it :(. Sorry for making it a TEDTalk about myself but I just wanted to get some of it off my chest, or something. Also apologies if any terms I used are seens as improper, English is not my mother tongue.

@@katiwithoutthee so true, when I was in my BSL class we had Deaf students from other countries as well. Poland and Spain. They could sign in their own language but wanted to learn the nuances in the UK. Ofcourse they picked up up a lot quicker than us hearing folk, but showed the valuable culture and language that is retained in sign.

thank you so much for recommending the app this video has inspired me to learn and i will begin there. please do update this comment if you find any more resources ❤

Why is eye contact considered the default way of making sure you have a person’s attention? As an autistic person, eye contact is generally uncomfortable and distracting, _especially_ when I’m so overwhelmed that I’m non-speaking.

@@ragnkja I don't know. What I've gathered about being deaf as hearing is that when not being able to use sound as an indicator, you have to rely on visual cues.

@@sofiaivarsson3482 A shift in posture and moving their head to look at you indicates that you’ve got their attention even if they’re not looking at your eyes. Similarly, if you’re behind an autistic person and want to get their attention, don’t touch them, but instead move so that you’re in their field of vision. I assume this is similar for Deaf people, since they can’t hear people approaching them unless they feel the footsteps through the floor.

I have fibromyalgia, and there are many times that I can't properly speak due to cognitive issues. I can still sign, but I know so little that my spouse and I can't properly communicate. It sucks to have to rely on a text-reader app, notes, or having someone else guess. You can't participate in conversation properly, and it's super isolating!