Doctor Oliver Sacks wrote in his novel Seeing Voices:A Journey Into the World of the Deaf, “Profoundly deaf people show no native disposition whatever to speak. Speaking… must be taught [to] them and is a labor of years. … They show an immediate and powerful disposition to sign” (page 27). This means any barrier between the Deaf and hearing is one of culture and/or language and not as a result of a disability. As sign meets all of the characteristics of a proper language, and is as diverse as speech, the Deaf simply are communicating in a different way. For much of history, they were isolated and seen as dumb. However, in the late 18th century, Frenchman Abbe Charles Michel de L'Epee opened the first public school for the Deaf in France. This
