Signs of Understanding
I know what it’s like to watch the expression in people’s eyes change from admiration to confusion to pity as they meet my child, and try to interact with her. Camille’s mother does, too. Camille is a blue-eyed, curly-haired, effervescent five-year-old, who does not always respond when spoken to. She has a rare form of hearing loss, and has to use accommodations such as lip reading in order to make sense of what is being said to her.
When I read Camille’s story in the Washington Post, I was struck by the choice of educational paths facing her family: a boarding school for the deaf three hours from home, or the local public school with an Individualized Education Program (IEP). Since American Sign Language (ASL) is not offered in Camille’s school district, her main IEP goal would be to advocate for accommodations such as preferential seating so she can “learn to function in the hearing world” https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/07/12/child-hearing-loss/.
What if the hearing world were to learn how to function in Camille’s world? My mentor Elaine Hall, founder of the life-changing, highly successful nonprofit The Miracle Project https://themiracleproject.org/, coined the term reverse inclusion. It refers to the ways in which people who do not (yet) have disabilities can benefit from initiatives intended for those who do (already) have them. The words in parentheses are inspired by Emily Rapp Black’s reminder that we are all an accident, illness, or merely years away from disability. The best example of reverse inclusion at Builder Bees is our fashion and talent show; for any girl, walking the red carpet in her choice of outfit and pose can mean liberation from the demands of fashion and peer pressure.
In the context of Camille’s story, reverse inclusion would suggest that the acquisition of ASL could benefit members of the hearing community. I just came across an article entitled “Four Scientific Reasons Why Everyone Should Learn ASL” https://aslblog.goreact.com/4-scientific-reasons-why-everyone-should-learn-asl/. It is easy to summarize; all four reasons pertain to the cognitive benefits to the learner: earlier communication, superior spatial reasoning, higher reading levels, and long-term cognitive benefits.
As encouraging as this is for the odds of ASL making it to more public school and college curricula, it presses all of my why-is-it-all-about-getting-your-kids-into-college? buttons. I have many degrees, and the one that has proved the least useful to my career is my BA in Classics (Latin and Greek) from Oxford University. There is more to language acquisition than grades.
I was fortunate to be able to speak this week with Rabbi Rebecca Dubowe, the first female Deaf Rabbi to be ordained worldwide. She acknowledged the positive changes that have taken place since she was in elementary school, most notably the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), and the recognition of ASL as a foreign language in California in 1988. She has become increasingly supportive of the role of ASL as a communication tool, and has used it to lead synagogue services that have enabled Jews around the country to feel more included in prayer. As Rachel Billington reminded us in an article for the Daily Trojan in September 2019, ASL is “the third most studied foreign language among college students,” which has resulted in enhanced communication with the quarter to half million Americans for whom this is their primary language https://dailytrojan.com/2019/09/24/american-sign-language-should-fulfill-foreign-language-requirement/.
However, Rabbi Dubowe also concluded that there is still too much “ignorance” of the strengths and contributions of people who happen to be hearing impaired. If Camille’s family chooses to send her to the school for the deaf, she will be segregated from the hearing world, and ignorance will be perpetuated. The hearing world will be less diverse, less open, less familiar with Camille’s experience. We need to address this vicious cycle: out-of-the-box children’s needs are not met or understood; these children are sent to specialized schools that understand and better meet their needs; their needs remain misunderstood in the mainstream community.
What if we were to recognize when a child is in need of speakers of her language? What if we were to accommodate this need in our schools and communities? Sometimes, as with ASL, a child’s language is codified, and the inclusion challenge is to learn to speak it. Sometimes, the language is not codified; it may take the form of meltdowns, shutdowns, ups and down. The commonality is that all forms of communication reflect a need to be understood, to belong.
Learning someone else’s language is about more than resume building, travel, curriculum requirement navigation, or even access. It’s about listening, watching, connecting, and sharing the red carpet treatment.