South East Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services offers courses to help the hearing appreciate deaf culture

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by Hanne Armstrong
This Week Staff

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"American Sign Language is a separate language with its own sentence structure," explains Laurie Vincent. "There's also a distinct deaf culture."

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South East Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services offers sign language courses to the general public every year.

Laurie is the executive director of the South East Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services, Inc., a United Way Member Agency in Moncton. She has been working with the deaf for about ten years.

"I met a deaf couple in 1991, and that inspired me to learn about the deaf community," she recalls. "I've been with the SEDHH Services for three years now, two in my present position."

The South East Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services exists to advocate on behalf of the deaf, the deafened, and the hard of hearing. The difference between 'deaf' and 'deafened' is the difference between being born unhearing, and becoming so later. Currently over 450 people in Southeast New Brunswick are being helped by SEDHH Services.

The non-profit organization also works with the general public, particularly through its four-level course on learning ASL. Each level lasts ten weeks, with one 3-hour class per week.

"In the first level," says Laurie, "we introduce everyday vocabulary, numbers, and common phrases. By the end of the second level, we get into sentence structure and deaf culture."

These two course levels are usually filled to capacity, but the last two tend to be attended only by those working with the deaf, such as caregivers or parents, and those intending to become interpreters.

There is no spoken English in levels three and four, only signing, and the work is more challenging. You must have completed all four levels to go on to the interpreters' course in Dartmouth, NS.

"Our instructors, Raymond and Cheryl Dupuis, are great" says Laurie, "They're both deaf, and have been teaching here for over 15 years. If there's a word they don't know, they find it out."

Why would there be words unfamiliar to people who have been teaching for 15 years? Primarily, technology. The electronic era spawns new words and phrases quite often, and the North American authority on signing, Gallaudet University, in Washington, D.C., is consulted for new vocabulary.

Interestingly, not everyone using sign language daily waits to see what Gallaudet comes up with, the result being that different areas come up with their own signs for new words, creating expressions as geographically unique in the deaf world as in the spoken one.

Tobie Martin is another instructor with SEDHH Services, who for the last two years has been teaching signing to hearing babies and toddlers.

"Some parents want to teach their infants sign language because they learn it earlier and faster than speaking," says Laurie. "It's amazing how quickly they learn, and moms have the benefit of knowing why their child is crying."

SEDHH Services does not teach ASL to Francophones, though, who learn the entirely different language, LSQ, in programmes based out of Quebec. The Services do, however, provide hearing assistance devices such as telephones, for those experiencing diminishing hearing.

"We'd like to see more awareness in the hearing public of what deafness is," ends Laurie. "We'd like them be more aware of the culture and of our services."