ASL Facts
ASL students have a notebook, in which, they put sign lists and categories, classwork, and ASL facts that show up on their tests. These are most of the facts that are gone over in class, and appear on the tests various times. Some of these are linked to outside sources (such as the official site) so you can take a look if you're up to it.
Categories listed:
Sign Language Systems || Important People || School Systems || Schools || Characteristics of a Sign || Aspects of Deaf Culture || Dimensions of ASL || Categories of ASL || Directional Verbs || Non-Manuals || Deaf Organizations || Hearing Loss || Types of Hearing Loss || Other Facts
Sign Language Systems || Important People || School Systems || Schools || Characteristics of a Sign || Aspects of Deaf Culture || Dimensions of ASL || Categories of ASL || Directional Verbs || Non-Manuals || Deaf Organizations || Hearing Loss || Types of Hearing Loss || Other Facts
The Three Sign Language Systems:
- Manual English - used to teach deaf children English, there is one sign for every word.
- Signed English - take ASL signs and put them into English word order. Often used between a hearing and a deaf person.
- American Sign Language (ASL) - true language of the Deaf community. There is no written form of ASL and no words. Closest to Chinese.
- Lou Fant - coined the term ASL
- Thomas Gallaudet - first teacher of the Deaf, opened the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut
- William Stoke - proved ASL is a real language
- Alice Cogswell - first student of Thomas Gallaudet
- Laurent Clerc - co-founded the American School for the Deaf with Gallaudet
- Alexander Graham Bell - had a deaf wife; invented the telephone
- I King Jordan - first deaf president of Gallaudet University
- Mainstream - a school where the Deaf student goes to public school with a translator, most of the other students aren't deaf. Example: Sprague High School
- Residential - the Deaf student lives at the school in a Dorm and goes home on the weekends. Example: Oregon School for the Deaf
- Day School - Deaf student goes to school Monday-Friday and goes home afterward everyday, like a normal school; all students are deaf. Example: Phoenix Day School for the Deaf
- American School for the Deaf - the first deaf school open in the U.S., located in Hartford, Connecticut. Founded by William Stoke and Laurent Clerc in the late 1800s.
- Gallaudet University - the only Liberal Arts college for the Deaf
- OSD - Oregon School for the Deaf
- Western Oregon University - the number one college program in the Pacific northwest for ASL. Does interpreting, teaching, and counseling the deaf.
- Handshape (Example: Open 5, Closed 5)
- Location (Where the sign is)
- Orientation (positioning of the hand)
- Movement (motion of a sign)
- Socialization
- Organization
- ASL
- Pride
- Schools
- Visual
- Spacial
- Gestural
- Iconic - means you can probably figure out what the sign means just by looking at it. (Examples: "drive" or "break")
- Symbolic - means you see the sign, but you probably don't know what it means by looking at it. (Examples: "early" or "physics")
- Directional verb - verbs that move; if you change the movement, you change the meaning of it.
- Source - where the sign starts
- Goal - where the sign ends
- Subject - the receiver of the sign
- Object - the signer of the sign
- Yes/No Question - Raise the eyes, tilt the head
- Information Seeking Question - Squint the eyes, tilt the head
- CS (like the sound that CS makes) - Close distance, close time
- Shake head - Form of negation
- Nod head - Form of "yes", or happy things in general
- Eye contact - Recognize someone; you want to talk to them
- Puff cheeks - Also referred to as "pah" (like the noise); shows a far distance or "a lot"
- Body shift - shows two different people talking
- Vertical eye gaze - shows a difference in status or height between two people
- To show intensity - squeeze eyebrows, purse the lips tightly; emphasis (hold the sign or pause)
- NAD - National Association for the Deaf, the largest and most powerful political organization for the Deaf.
- OAD - Oregon Association of the Deaf, the largest political assocation for the Deaf in Oregon.
- NTID - National Technical Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, New York. Best math/science school for the Deaf.
- RID - Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, the biggest organization of interpreters.
- Decibels (dB) - unit used to measure sound
- 0 to 15 dB loss - Normal
15 to 40 dB loss (roughly) - Mild (considered to be "hard of hearing")
40 to 60 dB loss (roughly) - Moderate (considered to be "hard of hearing")
60 to 80 dB loss (roughly) - Severe (considered to be "hard of hearing")
90+ dB loss - Profoundly Deaf
- Conductive Hearing Loss - damage to the outer or middle ear, it can be repaired and fixed.
- Sensori-neural Hearing Loss - there is damage in the inner ear, more specifically the cochlea or the nerves. It is a permanent loss, unless you get a cochlea implant.
- English Gloss - a way to represent ASL on paper. Use English words to represent ASL signs in all capital letters.
- TDD (Telecommunications device for the deaf) - communication device used by deaf people to talk on the phone (looks like a typewriter).
- Closest spoken language to ASL: Chinese
- ASL came from France
- Referent - a spot in your signing space to show where a person or an object is
- Dominant hand - the hand you use for most of your signing
- Agent sign - used to change a verb to a noun (Example: if you sign the word "manage", and then put the agent sign after, the sign meaning changes from "manage" to "manager")
- Audiologist - tests your hearing and provides people with hearing aides
- Audiogram - a graph of someone's hearing loss
- Linguists - people who study languages. They've found 18 handshapes, 24 movements, and 12 locations when studying the signs used in ASL
- 35 states have accepted ASL as a foreign language
- Access - learning ASL is all about access