My daughter, who is 6 years old, has taken an interest in sign language. She has befriended another little girl in her class who is deaf. She is learning not only from her but there is a teacher who sits in the classroom as well just to interpret what the classroom teacher is saying and she is teaching my daughter too.
Here is my question. When my daughter goes to visit her "mamaw" she tells my daughter she is doing it the wrong way. Now my mother-in-law has nothing but a couple of sign language books and an eighth grade education and she is constantly telling my daughter that she is doing the sign wrong because what she is learning in school is not the same as what is in her books, therefore she claims my daughter is lying about knowing sign. Aside from my mother-in-law being a narrow-minded heartless individual, is she correct or is there different sign for different age groups or what???
1 comment… read it below or add one
In addition to the other answer (which is good), there are some other reasons:
(a) There are lots of regional signs, so signs in one area of the country may be different than signs in another. The book may have been published in a different region of the country.
(b) All languages change, ASL included. (Ex: 15 years ago, what was a ‘mouse’? Nothing to do with computers, that’s for sure). The book may be old.
(c) Signs do not follow the english word, but rather the meaning of the word. If you look up the sign for “break” in a book they may give you one, POSSIBLY two ways to sign it, but I can think of at least 5 that I use in different situations. They wouldn’t all be included in a book, but using a different one is wrong in ASL.
(d) The pictures in ASL books are hard to understand, and your mother-in-law may not be doing the sign correctly.
Either way… your daughter is 6. Even if she was making it up, if it’s making her happy, who cares? But if she is learning it from a deaf girl, and an interpreter, I’d trust her over a book.