I have mentioned I’m working on learning ASL. I thought it might be fun to share how I’m doing with this.

There is also the disturbing thing I want to share with you. Did you know 90% of parents who have a deaf child do not bother to learn ASL? Talk about isolating to put it mildly, it explains why I see those who are deaf do a double take when I would finger spell to them. I couldn’t read it back but they were just so happy to see my attempt to be inclusive.

I’m all for being inclusive however I feel at times we are focusing on only certain areas down to the last detail. We should be looking at those who are isolated from others as well. I personally think ASL should be taught from the moment you start in school and used all the way on though all of it. First these kids wouldn’t be excluded and made to feel broken. There are also concerts, the bar, plays… I could list so many places where this would help for any person.

We need to change areas where there has been isolation due to disability and this is just one example. Plus if we taught inclusion and equality by doing this it would spread into other areas. Learning your areas sign language is crucial for so many reasons. For my region ASL is the sign language used and there are so many content creators in social media you can learn from meaning you get decent at reading it as well. One small change like this would have a heck of a snowball effect, to put it mildly. I encourage you to learn even just the alphabet so you can finger spell. Just watch the faces of the individuals who flat out need it and it probably won’t take long for it to turn into learning alot more.

Plus if you have a deaf family member you should know sign flat out, for those 90% how the hell are your kids going to be able to communicate with you? Do you know how their class went? Quit being selfish and learn sign. Technology does fail so don’t rely on it. Life happens and not being able to communicate this forces people to be left out and abandoned. Let’s change this it’s easy to do just by learning it yourself.