Should ASL be Banned from Deaf Ed programs?

[deafdyke]

P.S. What if the person has a Boston accent and so the R in "beer" is dropped and it becomes Bee-ah! is that easier to lipread?

No idear, but I can lipread a Bwoston accent pretty well.
You know...........maybe a good compromise, might be to offer a hybrid track......both spoken English AND ASL used.

 

[Buffalo]

You didn't have "absolutely and most definately not!" so I just voted "no."

Shel90 didn't have "Heck, No!" so I went with "no".

 

[Buffalo]

I respect your opinion but I see the opposite daily as a teacher for the deaf.

Huh? I thought they consider your school to be the dumping ground for the oral failures. Why don't they take their kid to an oral school and leave your school alone?

By the way, you feel better about the high voting of "no"?

 

[jillio]

I completely, totally, utterly disagree with the bolded statement, as did a couple others here already. Where are you getting your information? Only if someone were mumbling or talking sloppily could I see this happening. There is definite different lip movement with these letters. I just asked my roommate to do "milk" and "beer" (as per your example in a previous post) -- we did this 10 times and he randomly switched between the two words so I didn't know which was coming, I got it right TEN out of TEN times. There was a clear and definite difference between the two. To my eye, the "L" in milk is very distinguishable, as was the "R" in beer.

Please explain, then, what an "L" looks like on the lips, and also what an "r" looks like on the lips.

And yes, you asked your roomate to say two words that you already knew were going to be said. That is hardly a random test. You knew the words being used prior to them being used. Therefore, you are relying on prior knowledge. And, unless you were in a soundproof booth as the words were being spoken, with no auditory feed, you were also relying on more than just speech reading. Where do I get my information? From linguistics, and speech pathology.

 

[jillio]

Agreed on the letters P, B, & M.
but how is "ilk" and "eer" the same visually??? the placement of the lips and tongue are SOOO different with the letters B & L. with B the lips are closed. with L the tongue touches the roof of the mouth. i cannot understand how u can say those words look like! lol.
I have a question, how much do u rely on lip-reading and how much do u rely on hearing the sound, in order to understand whats being said? Just wondering... for me, i would say its like 90% lip-reading and 10% hearing the person's voice.

They aren't the same visually. The mechanism placement that creates the phonological representation of "ilk" and "eer" are not in a visable position. In other words, they cannot be seen. There is no visual cue that would distinguish between the two.

If you took an x-ray that showed the postion of the vocal mechanisms, you would be able to see the difference in placement, and the different position of the soft palette. However, with teeth and lips obscuring the view, you cannot see these sounds. That is why speech reading is only accurate to 30% without contextual, added visual, or auditory cues.

 

[Jiro]

Please explain, then, what an "L" looks like on the lips, and also what an "r" looks like on the lips.

And yes, you asked your roomate to say two words that you already knew were going to be said. That is hardly a random test. You knew the words being used prior to them being used. Therefore, you are relying on prior knowledge. And, unless you were in a soundproof booth as the words were being spoken, with no auditory feed, you were also relying on more than just speech reading. Where do I get my information? From linguistics, and speech pathology.

which is why I frequently failed miserably in that test when the audiologist covered her mouth and asked me to say the word she was saying.

 

[jillio]

which is why I frequently failed miserably in that test when the audiologist covered her mouth and asked me to say the word she was saying.

Yes. When a person speech reads, they are using many, many cues that they quite often do not realize that they are using. It is not simply comprehending the language from looking at the position of the mouth when a word is pronounced. It includes added cues such as context, facial expression, body language, additional visual cues, and if one has it, residual hearing. That is why it is often called "speech reading" instead of "lip reading".

But then, when a hearing person is processing spoken language, they also rely on these cues, but with better audition than a deaf person has.

Think of the childhood game "telephone" where one person whispers a sentence into another's ear without allowing their face to be seen. By the time the sentence has been whispered to 10 people, the last one says out loud what they heard. It never resembles the original sentence. Why? Because hearing people rely on numerous other cues to understand spoken language even without a deficit in their hearing. Deaf individuals rely on these visual cues even more because of a deficit in the amount of auditory stimuli they are able to receive.

If you reverse the game and put a person in a soundproof booth, with nothing but the face visable, and ask someone to repeat what they have just seen that person say with no auditory cues, no contextual cues, no additional visual cues, you will find the same results. The sentence repeated will not be the same as the original sentence. Why? Because there were not enough cues available to process the information into meaningful linguistic information.

 

[Jiro]

Yes. When a person speech reads, they are using many, many cues that they quite often do not realize that they are using. It is not simply comprehending the language from looking at the position of the mouth when a word is pronounced. It includes added cues such as context, facial expression, body language, additional visual cues, and if one has it, residual hearing. That is why it is often called "speech reading" instead of "lip reading".

But then, when a hearing person is processing spoken language, they also rely on these cues, but with better audition than a deaf person has.

which is how they are able to discern if the person was joking, being sarcastic, or being serious.

 

[jillio]

which is how they are able to discern if the person was joking, being sarcastic, or being serious.

Very true. For the deaf person, what the hearing person will know through tonality, etc., the deaf person knows through facial expression, body language, and context.

 

[AlleyCat]

Please explain, then, what an "L" looks like on the lips, and also what an "r" looks like on the lips.

And yes, you asked your roomate to say two words that you already knew were going to be said. That is hardly a random test. You knew the words being used prior to them being used. Therefore, you are relying on prior knowledge. And, unless you were in a soundproof booth as the words were being spoken, with no auditory feed, you were also relying on more than just speech reading. Where do I get my information? From linguistics, and speech pathology.

You can do better than linguistics and speech pathology. Please cite specific examples. You've read from quite a few of us already in this very thread that many of us can differentiate between milk and beer, so I am not alone in this thinking. There is a VAST difference between you, as a hearing person, idealizing what it is like to lipread, than a deaf person HAVING to lipread and picking out certain lip/tongue movements to make words clear. 38 years of being deaf and lipreading will do this for you, believe me. So think about that before you spout off on what words are distinguishable and what is not. Again, it is subjective to everyone. Having said that, this person (my roommate) that I did this test with is someone that just moved in, I've barely spoken with him so I didn't have a lot of previous experience conversing with him, so he was a good subject to try this out with. You've already read in some of my previous posts in other threads that I have minimal hearing and no speech discrimination - I could barely hear his voice and not enough to pick out words or even phonemes (sp?) to know which word he said.

And, to answer your initial question, the "L" has a distinctive movement of the tongue. Get in front of the mirror and say milk. You should clearly be able to see the "L" on your tongue and lips -- I've got 38 years' experience lipreading these letters. Others on this forum have said the same thing about the L. And, the "R" is slightly pursed on the lips whereas the "k" is not -- in "milk" -- so it was extremely easy to see that the word "beer" ended in an "R".

 

[shel90]

Huh? I thought they consider your school to be the dumping ground for the oral failures. Why don't they take their kid to an oral school and leave your school alone?

By the way, you feel better about the high voting of "no"?

Can you rephrase that. I am not sure I am reading you right. Thanks!

Am I happy..I still feel a broken heart inside in some ways about this whole thing so it may take some time.

 

[shel90]

You can do better than linguistics and speech pathology. Please cite specific examples. You've read from quite a few of us already in this very thread that many of us can differentiate between milk and beer, so I am not alone in this thinking. There is a VAST difference between you, as a hearing person, idealizing what it is like to lipread, than a deaf person HAVING to lipread and picking out certain lip/tongue movements to make words clear. 38 years of being deaf and lipreading will do this for you, believe me. So think about that before you spout off on what words are distinguishable and what is not. Again, it is subjective to everyone. Having said that, this person (my roommate) that I did this test with is someone that just moved in, I've barely spoken with him so I didn't have a lot of previous experience conversing with him, so he was a good subject to try this out with. You've already read in some of my previous posts in other threads that I have minimal hearing and no speech discrimination - I could barely hear his voice and not enough to pick out words or even phonemes (sp?) to know which word he said.

And, to answer your initial question, the "L" has a distinctive movement of the tongue. Get in front of the mirror and say milk. You should clearly be able to see the "L" on your tongue and lips -- I've got 38 years' experience lipreading these letters. Others on this forum have said the same thing about the L. And, the "R" is slightly pursed on the lips whereas the "k" is not -- in "milk" -- so it was extremely easy to see that the word "beer" ended in an "R".

Like I said, in one on one situations, it would be easier to identify the differences but in a room full of hearing people talking stimulateously, I would definitely not be able to catch the different due to the rapid movement of hearing people's lips when chatting away. I noticed that during one on one situations when hearing people talk to me, they make sure they are facing me, that they move their mouths more clearly and the lighting is good. Most situations are not always going to be like that and in a classroom full of hearing kids and teacher just talking and moving, the deaf child usually gets so lost and ends up losing the track of the discussion completely. I have worked in oral programs for my student teaching experience at ASU and I saw that so many times with the oral deaf kids...they are usually just sitting there quietly watching everyone and even a few of them told me that they hate it when the teachers call on them to respond to a question or opinion during the discussion. I told the kids that I remember feeling the anxiety of hoping I wouldnt get called on cuz I usually get reprimanded for not paying attention.

No matter how hard I work at lipreading everything that is being said, I just couldnt keep up and lose all the contextual cues that usually help me fill in the gaps from not having full access to the language being spoken, and just completely lose track of the conversations. Also, I remember my eyes always hurting from trying so hard and have to give them a break so I would count the holes in the ceiling out of boredom.

In class being discussed using ASL, no lipreading is required.

 

[Babyblue]

Anybody know vaccum means???

Yes

 

[jillio]

You can do better than linguistics and speech pathology. Please cite specific examples. You've read from quite a few of us already in this very thread that many of us can differentiate between milk and beer, so I am not alone in this thinking. There is a VAST difference between you, as a hearing person, idealizing what it is like to lipread, than a deaf person HAVING to lipread and picking out certain lip/tongue movements to make words clear. 38 years of being deaf and lipreading will do this for you, believe me. So think about that before you spout off on what words are distinguishable and what is not. Again, it is subjective to everyone. Having said that, this person (my roommate) that I did this test with is someone that just moved in, I've barely spoken with him so I didn't have a lot of previous experience conversing with him, so he was a good subject to try this out with. You've already read in some of my previous posts in other threads that I have minimal hearing and no speech discrimination - I could barely hear his voice and not enough to pick out words or even phonemes (sp?) to know which word he said.

And, to answer your initial question, the "L" has a distinctive movement of the tongue. Get in front of the mirror and say milk. You should clearly be able to see the "L" on your tongue and lips -- I've got 38 years' experience lipreading these letters. Others on this forum have said the same thing about the L. And, the "R" is slightly pursed on the lips whereas the "k" is not -- in "milk" -- so it was extremely easy to see that the word "beer" ended in an "R".

You have told me that you can distinguish between the words "milk" and "beer" but you have yet to show that you can do so through lipreading alone. I have shown you where you are using additional cues to distinguish between the two, not the least of which is prior knowledge. Prior knowledge is a factor that is used in speechreading all the time. Standing in front of a mirror, knowing what word one is getting ready to pronounce, and then specifically looking for cues is hardly a controlled environment.

I have thought about it, studied it, and tested it in contolled environments. Therfore, I suggest that perhaps you should do the same prior to "spouting off." You are still using additional cues other than lipreading alone.

 

[AlleyCat]

You have told me that you can distinguish between the words "milk" and "beer" but you have yet to show that you can do so through lipreading alone. I have shown you where you are using additional cues to distinguish between the two, not the least of which is prior knowledge. Prior knowledge is a factor that is used in speechreading all the time. Standing in front of a mirror, knowing what word one is getting ready to pronounce, and then specifically looking for cues is hardly a controlled environment.

I have thought about it, studied it, and tested it in contolled environments. Therfore, I suggest that perhaps you should do the same prior to "spouting off." You are still using additional cues other than lipreading alone.

I will give you prior knowledge. However, as I stated, I have very minimal hearing (not enough to differentiate between "milk" and "beer", at the very least, I only hear sounds) and practically no speech discrimination. So I realistically had no outside factors other than prior knowledge. Now, when it comes to using two words, "milk" and "beer," I've got a 50/50 chance of getting it right. And, in this specific case, getting it right 10 times out of 10 tells me that I was able to pick up on those very "L" and "R" letters each and every time. That can't be disputed. Shel has very valid points about lipreading in a large setting as I know first-hand what that's like, but when you're talking about picking out certain letters -- in this case, the L and R in milk and beer, and especially on a one-on-one basis, there IS a difference. Nothing you say will change that.

 

[Daredevel7]

You have told me that you can distinguish between the words "milk" and "beer" but you have yet to show that you can do so through lipreading alone. I have shown you where you are using additional cues to distinguish between the two, not the least of which is prior knowledge. Prior knowledge is a factor that is used in speechreading all the time. Standing in front of a mirror, knowing what word one is getting ready to pronounce, and then specifically looking for cues is hardly a controlled environment.

I have thought about it, studied it, and tested it in contolled environments. Therefore, I suggest that perhaps you should do the same prior to "spouting off." You are still using additional cues other than lipreading alone.

Im sorry but this is irritating me. Can't you just accept that deaf people with good lipreading skills can "magically" understand the difference between milk and beer? Experience itself >> tests, studies, theories, statistics, hypothesis, and so on. Besides, this is pointless because theres a million other words that we DO get confused by. For me, I cant tell the difference between fifteen and fifty. So there, use that. Can we move on?! If someone brings up milk/beer again, someone get me a beer!!!!!! (I prefer Heineken, thank you)

 

[VamPyroX]

any programs that teaches Deaf kids in the schools.

Then my answer is... ASL shouldn't be banned, but it should be discouraged when it comes to teaching proper grammar and English.

If you use ASL 90% of the time and English 10% of the time (only for English class), the you're not getting the full understanding of English.

 

[shel90]

Then my answer is... ASL shouldn't be banned, but it should be discouraged when it comes to teaching proper grammar and English.

If you use ASL 90% of the time and English 10% of the time (only for English class), the you're not getting the full understanding of English.

That's not what I see..

 

[AlleyCat]

Im sorry but this is irritating me. Can't you just accept that deaf people with good lipreading skills can "magically" understand the difference between milk and beer? Experience itself >> tests, studies, theories, statistics, hypothesis, and so on. Besides, this is pointless because theres a million other words that we DO get confused by. For me, I cant tell the difference between fifteen and fifty. So there, use that. Can we move on?! If someone brings up milk/beer again, someone get me a beer!!!!!! (I prefer Heineken, thank you)

LOL I'll take a MGD !! I have the same problem with numbers too, 17 and 70, 15 and 50, and so on. It was just very clear to me (and others here too!) that "milk" and "beer" were undoubtedly different enough that we deaf people can usually differentiate between the two. Seems everybody has to prove themselves with Jillio as she's "right" all the time and most of the rest of us are "wrong." And since I brought up milk/beer just now, I'll take that MGD; cheers!!

 

[sirena rossa]

Im sorry but this is irritating me. Can't you just accept that deaf people with good lipreading skills can "magically" understand the difference between milk and beer? Experience itself >> tests, studies, theories, statistics, hypothesis, and so on. Besides, this is pointless because theres a million other words that we DO get confused by. For me, I cant tell the difference between fifteen and fifty. So there, use that. Can we move on?! If someone brings up milk/beer again, someone get me a beer!!!!!! (I prefer Heineken, thank you)

LOL, i confuse fifty and fifteen too! and make mine a Sam Adams™ Oktoberfest!