American Sign Language Pros And Cons

American Sign Language (ASL) is the way that people who are deaf can communicate with each other and the rest of the world. American Sign Language has evolved over time and is no longer only used by those who are deaf. It is commonly used for people who are hard of hearing, completely deaf, people with autism and Down syndrome and other disabilities. Many parents have begun to use sign language with their babies so that the child will be able to talk before they are able to actually talk using their voice. When your child, who is deaf, is taught to use sign language it is a no brainer because that will be how they communicate from the rest of their lives. The child will not have a way to communicate as he or she gets older besides using gestures …show more content…
They believe that it is not the case for typical babies, who are generally pretty good at making their needs known, like when they cry a certain way, one cry can be a hungry cry and another cry can be a wet diaper cry. Other cons of this is that with teaching American sign language to babies that can hear is that if we “paid as much attention to babies ' vocalizations as we do to their hands, we would find that gestures are likely to be accompanied by protowords - consistent vocalizations that are word-like.”(Developing language for life 2007). ”They think that if we actually attend to what our babies are vocalizing, imitate their sounds back to them and present them with contexts where their sound making has meaning, perhaps they will talk as well as sign.” (Developing language for life, 2007) Another disadvantage seen in teaching babies who can hear already American Sign Language is that no one from the deaf community is profiting, there is no evidence of any of the profits being donated to organizations that support deaf children and their families. The people who can hear, who are also promoting it are the ones who copyrighted the name. Skeptics think the components of teaching a baby American Sign Language sign should have deaf people to be the trainers, the authors and the models in the videos. (Developing language for life …show more content…
Sign language helps build a bond between the family and a baby it encourages eye contact and attention to movements long before they can coordinate all the movements required for speech. (Donovan, Claire) American Sign Language can help create an educational environment where all children can successfully learn and socialize, whether they are hearing, deaf or have special needs.it should also be pointed out that when parents of a child who can hear decide to teacher their child to sigh according to pizer(2007) when they first start they do learn more about the deaf community then they probably ever would have but also that as the child grows up the parents tend to stop with the sign language and the impact is shorter then it is for those who stick with is and even as the child grows older the parents and child are still using sign language. it is also important to remember that the idea that teaching your baby , even though they can hear, American sign language it is not proved to make your child smart then those who do not get taught to sign ( seal