I don't mean to quote again but I forget the main point. Reading body language and lips and facial expressions is only part of our communication. We also use ASL to *fully* communicate in our native language. You can still communicate without ASL if you only have the body, facial and lip (BLF) reading ability. But, it's almost impossible to use ASL on its own without the other BLF reading added in.
I think this is why so many hearie parents, at least ours in this case, took ASL away, or access to it away, because they don't realize that deafies need *ALL* of the parts to communicate. When they take away ASL we can still understand but we are missing all of the visual picture so communication becomes more challenging and we are often misunderstood because of it. They take one aspect of our whole communication away.
I hope I explain this correctly.
