AW: [sw-l] SignWriting Art from Christoph, age 11, in Germany ; -)

Sun May 8 14:03:10 UTC 2005

Hi Shane, 

yes you are right - the political correct term for DEAF is "gehoerlos"
hearing-impaired  (= hoergeschaedigt) hard of hearing (schwerhoerig) 

Your statement about CI in Denmark is hard to believe. Yesterday I got
answer from Prof. Gisela Szagun  a very famous osychologist who ran a survey
on speechdevelopment in children after CI implantation. 

Fact is - that some of the children will be able to develop an almost
"normal" spoken language development. (All these studies  do not mention -
as far as I know - the psycholocial aspects in the long run - but focus on
hearing and speaking) 

Quite a lot of these children however will spent hours, weeks, months and
even years in a state of comunicative deprivation. 

It is rediculous and wrong to keep SL away from them. The contrary is right!
And we can proof that -- smile! 

So again intense use of GebardenSchrift-Documents enabled these children to
compare there knowledge of SL with their knowledge of Spoken Language
beautifully! 

Go ahead and start with SW memory cards,  hand shapes, Mundbilder (! yes!), 
name signs, single signs  - like hello, where, good morning ... the very
first day at your new project - I can tell and show more about that at
Brussels! 

And well - the fact that all of my sons (even little Godian -age 6 now) had
been my teacher to demonstrate how easy little children can remember and
read these signs - has had a major impact on my attitude and enthusiasm. 

Today Gordian (6 years) sat down and produced this darling maenniken -
picture) Can you imagine? He will start school in September but he is
absolutey fluent and competent in remembering and finding all the tiny
symbols, he can shift between typing letters and signwriting , he can use
the dictionary perfectly - word order like spoken language (smile), so from
his idea inside his head until saving (alt + s) his work he proofes his
ability to handle this software progam perfectly. In this case he even took
care of the fill of the hand shape (smile!!) So he develops kind of
consciousness about the meaning of the fills. ( I did not realise that
before)
The written words are German following more a kind of phonetic code - but
you see - he already chooses to type single words instead of endless rows of
letters. 

I love to see these maenniken ... 

 So yes - even hearing or hard of hearing children can take an advantage out
of the use of SW -- 

Stefan ;-) 

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
[mailto:owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu] Im Auftrag von Shane Gilchrist
Ó hEorpa
Gesendet: Sonntag, 8. Mai 2005 14:57
An: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
Betreff: RE: [sw-l] SignWriting Art from Christoph, age 11, in Germany ; -)

(thats the email long overdue!)

Val,

Thats excellent about Christoph being non-deaf - we need more non-deaf
people to be fluent in our national sign languages AND able with
signwriting.

I was reading a very sad email last night that basically all deaf kids in
Denmark are now implanted at birth - and parents (unless they are deaf) have
to sign an agreement with schools that they will not use Danish Sign
Language with their implanted children - that was said by a school principal
(headteacher) but I am not sure about "all Danish deaf children" - u might
have more contacts in Denmark than I do, Val - and it's really affecting the
quality of their education - and of course their identity :(

As for "taub", I think German Deafies tend to go for "Gehorlen" (sp?) - (did
I get it wrong - PLEASE CORRECT ME, STEF!)

Good news for u, Val - we are putting together a group of parents with
non-deaf kids with the aim to start Northern Ireland's first NISL-medium
primary/elementary school in Belfast - the majority would be non-deaf of
course - thats the point - and we will use your system there :D

Now the question is when? :p

Shane

________________________________________
From: owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
[mailto:owner-sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu] On Behalf Of Valerie Sutton
Sent: 17 April 2005 02:58
To: sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
Subject: Re: [sw-l] SignWriting Art from Christoph, age 11, in Germany ; -)

SignWriting List
April 16, 2005

Shane Gilchrist Ó hEorpa wrote:
Is Christoph deaf or nondeaf?

Ist Christoph taub? Is Christoph Deaf? No. Go to this web page to read about
Stefan's three sons and his wife...all hearing (non-deaf). But Stefan's
little boys have learned SignWriting very very young, and they use the
SignWriter Computer Program all the time...creating lovely art and they read
signs at very young ages and can produce the movements they read!

Woehrmann Family
http://www.gebaerdenschrift.de/team/

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