Sign Language - Science topic

@Vivek,

AI generated text are not welcomed.

We are expecting specialists' opinions, not human interfaces.

Researchers never tire of studying. Dear Herry M, I am also from Tanzania currently in the US and I’m a first year graduate student taking classes at Lamar University (deaf studies and Education). On my searches I would like to recommend your friend to check the following articles (if still interested), Rothe, A. (2020 and 2022) as well as LEE, J. C. (2012). Could also go and check with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzanian_sign_languages#cite_note-:1-4. Thank you.

Thank you for your contribution to this thread Tomasz. It is really interesting.

There is not a kind of IPA for the sign languages like the phonetic table as we can see commonly for transcription. The parameters that could be used for the sign languages may include several facts like the mouth movements, the proximity to the body, the hand gestures, etc. It is an interesting project that can be addressed and developed in the future.

Dear Geoffrey Khaminwa Mulama , I find this article very contributing one.

Deaf scientists who use American Sign Language (ASL) need to be able to communicate specialized concepts with ease. Because deaf individuals — here we use ‘deaf’ broadly to refer to the full kaleidoscope of deaf experiences — have historically been under-represented in science, the linguistic capabilities of ASL have yet to be fully explored for scientific discourse. As a consequence, deaf scientists may not have the necessary tools to effectively articulate their work. Nowadays, with improved educational opportunities and communication access, there are more deaf ASL users who are experts in scientific fields. Through their scientific work, these researchers finally have opportunities to expand ASL by incorporating new technical signs and experimenting with best practices for communication. In this Viewpoint, four deaf scientists — a quantum physicist, a marine ecologist, an immunologist and an organic chemist — discuss their experiences in developing scientific lexicons and the resulting shift in their science communication...

Ethnologue: 157 sign languages and counting... Glottolog 215 sign languages and counting... Usually, indigenous sign languages are considered isolates.

Thank you very much, Akhter Al Amin!

I was interested in language contact and how one language can influence another. For example, in the case of Libras (Brazilian Sign Language) we have many linguistic borrowings from the Portuguese language. Some signs are spelled using the sign alphabet and others use a hand configuration that refers to the initial letter of the Portuguese word. In addition, we can also observe a lot of influence on the Libras syntax. Now about the other question, could a sign language also influence an oral language, in a small community, perhaps influencing prosodic or even pragmatic aspects of the oral language?

I agree with your argument that a text of (a sign) is not enough to be considered as a discourse in terms of its textual structure. However, coherence in discourse is much more essential for the texturness of a text to be a discourse. Therefore, any sign has a kind of mutual comperhension (contextual interaction) between the reader and the writer (the one who has a message behind making such sign).

Interesting

Hear????

In my opinion, a simplified sign language with signs used in Key Word Signing can be used for deaf children with moderate intellectual disability. Key Word Signing is manual signing for only the words that carry the most important information instead of signing for each and every word. Along with Key Word Signing, Gestures, Facial Expressions can be used to strengthen the message and to enhance receptive and expressive communication.

Other AAC methods like Communication Boards and Books, AAC Speech Generating devices can also be used to improve communication in deaf people with moderate intellectual disabilities.

Dear Santosh Shail

Congratulations for this great project of the Canadian Institute of Mass Communication (CIMCweb.com). In Brazil, we developed the Hand Talk app. This is a revolutionary app for the deaf community. Representing an accessible solution, the app was acknowledged around the globe for its innovation and potential. The startup has won a number of awards including the Best Social App of the World in 2013, handed by UN at the World Summit Mobile Award, in Abu-Dhabi.

https://www.handtalk.me/br/Sobre

Best regards,

Carlos Alberto da Silva Júnior

Dear Dr. Hicham Abdelouafi ,

I recommend thih link for you:

I recommend this link for you:

Sign language in any country for deaf usually make same sign for one word thatswhy it is going to b good impact for deaf ,therefore deaf people use those signs with deaf people who live in different areas.

A very nice question, yes, ma'am, in some cases, people with hearing impairments who are allowed to learn the language

See these papers

Following up on 's comment, the case study can be found here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/412222?seq=1

I think it's hard to know whether her language skills were lacking due to not learning a language before a "critical period" or parental abuse or a disability. I think that the last explanation (mental disability) is pretty compelling. But it is hard to know for sure.

I do appreciate your precious piece of advice, madam. I'll email them for sure, thank you.

You may find AraNLP useful. This is the full article in Researchgate:

According to the project's description, AraNLP is a "Java-based library that covers various Arabic text preprocessing tools [...]. The library includes a sentence detector, tokenizer, light stemmer, root stemmer, part-of-speech tagger (POS-tagger), word segmenter, normalizer, and a punctuation and diacritic remover."

Thank you both, your comments are informative. I hope that the future of the deaf individuals will change so that they can get better chances to be hired in suitable positions.

Potentially of interest: http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/journal/volumes/03/campbell/

MacSweeney, Mairéad, Ruth Campbell, Bencie Woll, Vincent Giampietro, Anthony S. David, Philip K. McGuire, Gemma A. Calvert & Michael J. Brammer. 2004. "Dissociating linguistic and nonlinguistic gestural communication in the brain". NeuroImage 22(4): 1605-1618. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.03.015

Please refer to my research profile as I performed many researches for Arabic Sign Language recognition.

Thanks you so much sir

Thank you very much for your help!

Studiare la scrittura èmeraviglioso

The members of one culture do things in special patterned ways for specific culturally shared and understood meanings . I think the position is totally different in different cultures in manner of misunderstands . The same is true for my colleagues Indians , French , Chinese code-switching when they have a secret talk and they don't want others to know. Some times a lot of jokes occur in that areas . As a fun .@

Le tecniche on line ti permettono di ripetere tantissime volte le stesse frasi .Prova con Intelligenza digitale Acro-Word

Are you interested in participating in the research?

thanks for your response.

Dear Paula Maria Escudeiro,

thank you very much for your response. I'm very interested in your technology for the following reason. I'm trying to solve a problem where a blind person could perform a piece of music in the .mp3 format, changing the tempo and sound at his discretion. I need to convert the movements of the hands like gestures into control signals of the program, which in real time will execute music in accordance with the wishes of the user. Currently I have a program in C#, WPF, where these issues are solved by simply pressing the buttons from the computer screen. However, it would be great if the problem of controlling the tempo and sound would be solved with simple hand gestures. That's why I was interested in your technology. However, I'm a little confused by the fact that you solve the problem with the transfer of gestures with special gloves with sensors to capture the sign, as well as Kinect for capturing body movements. This means that people must have these technical devices. My goal was to solve the problem of transferring the gesture from the computer screen in real time, then to instantly execute this gesture as a control by tempo or sound.

Back in the 1970s-80s I helped to develop a general test, The TCS (Test of Communication Skills) designed to be employed with children and which can be used with lipreading, signing, total communication, and reading. I'm not sure who holds copyright at the moment, but I'm sure if you search online you will find it. My profile has some of the papers we published and I have a few more to upload when I've scanned them.

A lot of this information (i.e., questions) is not contained within the manual signs, but rather in the facial expressions of the signer

What a good idea! I am so pleased I asked.

Do you know about the work by Marie Rippel? See https://www.allaboutlearningpress.com/

I look forward to hearing more about your research.

Yesterday: Type- Race: translation corpus and fixed phrases Today: ACRO WORD textual component manufacturer             Work Tools: Reconversion of non-verbal languages ​​in real-time and syntagmatic axis of verbal language, ie L1 in L2. Want to know more . Come and work with us

there are many journals, but I prefer for you

ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage

OR

journal of deaf studies and deaf education.

Hello Samantha Applewhite,

Notably, Pre- Sessional English programs (PSE) are preparatory courses accredited by the British Council whose main objective is to satisfy the language needs of non native speakers who intend to  pursue an educational program in an English speaking country like England. As  an academic English language and study skills program, PSE prepares the targeted students linguistically and culturally for  future degree studies and helps them settle into university life without encountering serious communication problems.If I am not mistaken about the acronym, then the program is like any other pre-study course serving as English for academic purposes (EAP). These courses consider several important variables.

1) a thorough analysis of the targeted learners' needs,

2) selection of the related content and its gradation,,

3) choosing activities, exercises and tasks for presenting the content,and

4) deciding on forms of assessment and evaluation.

Best of luck,

R. Biria

Hi,

as you are dealing with sign language, i.e. image data, I wonder if we are not dealing with two challenges here:

Afaik, lamtram does not accept images to this date, so maybe you should rather look into image classification frameworks.

P.S.: Just as I am writing this, I come to realize how this is making your project more complex (and more innovative, in a positive line), just as it is mire complex to analyze a Youtube video as opposed to a classic newspaper article.

Hope there are some experts who have already trained a computer to accommodate sign language.

Best regards,

Christiane

 Thank you all so much!

Ayon--I have enjoyed exploring Neurosynth immensely. Thank you for sending that my way.

Dolors--thank you! I am applying this summer for the cognitive neuroscience program at the Basque Center.

Juliane--those articles were incredibly helpful. I was so excited to see your name in this thread! I recently cited your 2001 article on sign language aphasia during a presentation.

Best regards, 

Erin

Hi Jahangir, 

At the very early stage, you need to understand the task description and mearning of your data. Once you have the data, make sure getting the whole features, and labelling the existed instances (of each feature) based on the associated categories. After that, preproces this data and build your prediction model of, e.g.,  kNN under the evaluation of 10-fold cross-validation. 

HTH.

Samer

Hi Behrad,

As some other replies have already stated, the overall domain of microgrids is too vast.

The short list suggested below is entirely in keeping with your background and interest, as in your earlier posting:

-Sanjay

Gentile Signor Fracchia, 

Grazie mille per la Sua risposta e i documenti allegati in essa.

Mi ha aiutato molto e spero di poter pubblicare presto anch'io qualche risultato della mia ricerca.

Tanti saluti

Lena Stieber

Hi,

Please find attached some articles that may be of help to you.

Best Wishes!

I'd be interested to see the responses from experts in the field. I guess a really important starting point when considering such questions is to acknowledge that sign languages (of which there are many) are complete and rich languages the same as any other. Just as interpreting or translating from one spoken language to another is a complex activity, so it is for interpreting from a spoken to a SL or vice versa. The World Deaf Federation has a good introduction to Sign Language (see link).  

Just as we may find machine/software-based translation useful when wishing to understand text/speech from another (spoken) language, we also quickly recognise that such software generally does not allow a high level of accuracy, or transmit many of the nuances that may exist in the original. I'm guessing the same challenges would exist for machine/software-based techniques for a spoken language to a sign language.

Anyway, I'd be interested to learn more from others. 

@David Wafula Lwangale - not sure what you mean by 'perception' there - it sounds like you're referring to language acquisition? In which case, sign languages are the same as any spoken languages - key factors in acquisition include access to fluent language models (rather than 'instructors' per sae), and opportunities for expression. The limiting factor for many Deaf children is environmental - they are often isolated and don't have access to fluent language models. The variation between different sign languages is not a limiting factor in itself.

hello

maybe this link useful

You may consider looking into research on bilingualism and the cognitive and language benefits that come from learning two languages. Sign language does count as another language so looking into research on bilingualism may be a good place  to start.

Helo,

There are many research papers you can check. I have worked in Indian sign language for two years. you can check the papers like:

Conglomeration of Hand Shapes and Texture Information for Recognizing Gestures of Indian Sign Language Using Feed forward Neural Networks by P. V. V. Kishore

Moreover, Chethankumar Sir is an expert in this field. you can contact him for more details.

Thank you for your help 

There is also some research like

'The Role of Iconicity in Early Sign Language Acquisition' by Michael D. Orlansky and John D. Bonvillian in the Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 1984, Vol. 49, 287-292. doi:10.1044/jshd.4903.287

Hi Paulo,

I spotted your query coincidentally. Here are some older and newer references:

Klima, E.S. & U. Bellugi. 1980. Wit and poetry in American Sign Language. In Stokoe, W.C. (ed.), Sign and culture. A reader for students of American Sign Language. Silver Spring, MD: Linstok Press, 105-132.

Napoli, D.J. & R. Sutton-Spence. 2011. Sign language humor, human singularities, and the origins of language. In Mathur, G. & D.J. Napoli (eds.), Deaf around the world. The impact of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 231-250.

Rutherford, S.D. 1989. Funny in deaf – not in hearing. In Wilcox, S. (ed.), American Deaf culture. An anthology. Burtonsville, MD: Linstok Press, 65-82.

Sutton-Spence, R. & D.J. Napoli. 2012. Deaf jokes and sign language humor. Humor 25(3), 311-337.

Best, Roland.

Hand over hand and side by side so they can see the perspective!

Kester, there are very few studies that directly compare these groups of children, and those that do often group together deaf children who are exposed to any form of manual communication (ASL, Signed Exact English, baby signs, etc), without considering the age at which they began acquiring it, and also without actually assessing their proficiency in a natural sign language like ASL. So there are not a large number of well controlled studies. Are you interested in a particular domain? In the work I am familiar with, deaf children who have been exposed to fully accessible language (generally ASL) from birth perform very similarly to hearing children the same age.

What kind of outcomes are you interested in?   The only work I know of deals with older children. 

Look for work by Ulrike Zeshan; her dissertation, published as a book, was on Indo-Pakistani Sign Language

Here are some videos of Q and A on Indo-Pakistani Sign Language: https://indiasigning.wordpress.com/tag/ipsl/

Dear Siglinde

I agree.  Recently we reviewed grades and noted in NI the failings/underachievement data in terms of students leaving school.  Further investigation needed.  I am relatively new to this field but very keen to advance knowledge capital and share research.

I am working with 15 deaf sign language student teachers.

They are undertaking a course I organise at Ulster University - training them to teach.

Celia

Salam, Omar,

I do not answers for ll questions. I am not an expert but I am just trying to help. If you can discuss with someone who is specialized in Robotics, he will be of high value for such decisions. 

 1- How many samples per sign should i train the hmm? 

No exact number, use the just enough number *125%. Allocate 25% for testing. Take care to represent all variations you need, (man, woman), different ages,..etc.

2- should the samples include variations of the same sign with multiple signs representing the average movement of the sign ? should i train the hmm with different signers ?

From my point of view, the answers are: Yes, Yes

3- what are your suggestions for the preprocessing steps that i should do before learning and classifying for the signs itself, currently i'm subtracting the joints xyz from a stable joint the shoulders center ?

I suggest using the Kinnect model, referring for each sign relative to its axis of rotation, translation. not to the global fixed point. In the same time, using coding for the preconditions of the movement.

4- do you suggest subtracting the mean of the signs ? dividing by the standard deviation? i know that this will make some signs look identical while they're not actually the same.

I think no, some signs are known by their magnitude.

5- do you expect that if i added the xyz of the elbows to the feature vector that would be better for training the hmm as some signs need elbows movement and others don't?

6- Should each model have different parameters ? i.e hidden states numbers or the whole classifier should have the same count for states

How to train Hidden markov model for 3d gesture recognition?. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/how_to_train_Hidden_markov_model_for_3d_gesture_recognition [accessed May 30, 2015].

If anybody is interested in this topic, please contact me. Ihave been teaching English as a foreign language to the DHH students since 1999. I would be happy to share my experience with you. Here is my list of publications on this topic.

Greetings:))

Ewa DZ

PUBLICATIONS ON ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE TO DEAF AND HARD-OF-HEARING PERSONS

BOOKS

Domagała- Zyśk E. (red.), (2013). English as a foreign language for the deaf and hard of hearing persons in Europe. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL. ss. 220.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2013). Wielojęzyczni. Studenci niesłyszący i słabosłyszący w procesie uczenia się nauczania języków obcych. [Multilingual. Deaf and hard-of-hearing students in the process of teaching and learning foreign language] Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, ss.420.

Domagała - Zyśk E., Karpińska-Szaj K. (2011). Uczeń z wadą słuchu w szkole ogólnodostępnej. Podstawy metodyki nauczania języków obcych. [Student with heating loss in a mainstream school. Methodology of foreign language teaching and learning]. Kraków: Impuls, ss. 92.

BOOK CHAPTERS AND PAPERS IN ENGLISH

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2013). Using technology to teach English as a foreign language to the deaf and hard of hearing. W: Vilar Beltran E., Abbott Ch., Jones J. (2013). Inclusive Language Education and Digital Technology. Bristol, London, Toronto: Multilingual Matters, 84-102.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2013). Deaf and hard of hearing primary school pupils' motivation to learn English as a foreign language. In. S. Byra. E. Chodkowska (eds.) Socio-pedagogical contexts of social marginalization. UMCS, Lublin, 159-176.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2013). Written English of Polish deaf and hard of hearing grammar school students. W: English as a foreign language for the deaf and hard of hearing persons in Europe. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 163-180.

Domagała-Zyśk E (2012). Supporting Deaf and Hard of Hearing Learners in Foreign Language Classes in an Inclusive Settings. In: E. Domagała-Zyśk, D. Bis, A. Rynio Social and Educational Support in Life-long Human Development. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, s.161-180.

Domagała-Zyśk E (2012). Written Output of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Primary School Students Learning English as a Second Language. Roczniki Pedagogiczne 4(40) 3, 93-110.

PAPERS IN SPANISH

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2010). Uso de las tic an el aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras en estudiantes sordos universitarios. Una experiencia en la Universidad Catolica de Lublin. Escuela Abierta (Revista de investigacion educativa del Centro de Ensenanza Superior Cardenal Spinola CEU),13, 137-153.

BOOK CHAPTERS AND PAPERS IN POLISH

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2013). Kompetencje młodzieży gimnazjalnej z uszkodzeniami słuchu w zakresie pisania w języku angielskim W: Baran J., Gunia G. (red.) Teoria i praktyka oddziaływań profilaktyczno-wspierających rozwój osób z niepełnosprawnością, T. 2, vol. 1. Kraków: Wydawnictwo UP, 155-175.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2012). Strategie nauczania języka angielskiego jako obcego uczniów z uszkodzeniami słuchu w szkołach podstawowych, gimnazjach i szkołach ponadgimnazjalnych. Człowiek-Niepełnosprawność-Społeczeństwo, 3 (17), 67-86.

Domagała-Zyśk E., Podlewska A. (2012). Umiejętności polskich studentów z uszkodzeniami słuchu w zakresie posługiwania się mówioną formą języka angielskiego. W: Kutek-Składek Student z niepełnosprawnością w środowisku akademickim. Wydawnictwo Sw.. Stanisława BM, s. 134-157.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2012).Poziom motywacji niesłyszących studentów w zakresie uczenia się języków obcych. W: Kutek-Składek Student z niepełnosprawnością w środowisku akademickim. Wydawnictwo Sw.. Stanisława BM, s.173-200.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2012). Strategie nauczania języka angielskiego jako obcego uczniów z uszkodzeniami słuchu w szkołach podstawowych, gimnazjach i szkołach ponadgimnazjalnych. Człowiek-Niepełnosprawność-Społeczeństwo, 3 (17), 67-86.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2012). Kompetencje wzrokowe osób niesłyszących i możliwości ich wykorzystania w zakresie nauczani języków obcych. W: K. Krakowiak, A. Dziurda-Multan (red.) Wychowanie dzieci z uszkodzeniami słuchu – nowe wyzwania dla rodziców i specjalistów. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 255-270.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2012). Trudności osób niesłyszących w zakresie opanowania systemu leksykalnego i składniowego języka angielskiego jako obcego i strategie pokonywania tych trudności. W: Z. Palak, D. Chimicz, A. Pawlak (red.). Wielość obszarów we współczesnej pedagogice specjalnej. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, 361-382.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2011). Podstawowe trudności osób niesłyszących w opanowaniu pisowni języka obcego i ich kompensowanie. W: K. Krakowiak, A. Dziurda-Multan Ku wspólnocie komunikacyjnej niesłyszących i słyszących. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 149-162.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2011). Style uczenie preferowane przez niesłyszących uczestników lektoratu języka obcego. W M. Białas (red.) Specjalne potrzeby niepełnosprawnych. Kraków: Arson, s. 243-260.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2011). Domagała-Zyśk E., 2011c, Kompetencje uczniów niesłyszących i słabo słyszących w zakresie posługiwania się językiem angielskim w szkołach podstawowych, gimnazjach i szkołach ponadgimnazjalnych, „Neofilolog” (Czasopismo Polskiego Towarzystwa Neofilologicznego), 36 (Niezwykły uczeń – indywidualne potrzeby edukacyjne w nauce języków obcych, red. K. Karpińska-Szaj), s. 91–110.

Domagała - Zyśk E. (2010). Idea integracji a potrzeby niesłyszących studentów w zakresie uczenia się języków obcych w szkołach wyższych. W: S. Byra. M. Parchomiuk (red.) Student niepełnosprawny. Wybrane konteksty. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, s. 155-165.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2010). Uwarunkowania rozumienia tekstu w języku obcym przez osoby z uszkodzeniami słuchu. W: Z. Palak, A. Bujnowska, A. Pawlak (red.) Aktualne problemy edukacji i rehabilitacji osób niepełnosprawnych w biegu życia. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, s. 163-173

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2010). Procesy pamięciowe u osób z uszkodzeniami słuchu a nauczanie ich języka obcego. W: M. Wójcik (red.) (2010). Edukacja i rehabilitacji osób z wadą słuchu – wyzwania współczesności. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Edukacyjne „AKAPIT”, s. 119-130.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2009). Trudności osób niesłyszących w nabywaniu słownictwa w języku obcym i sposoby przezwyciężania tych trudności. W: M. Dycht, L. Marszałek Dylematy (niepełno)sprawności – rozważania na marginesie studiów kulturowo – społecznych. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Salezjańskie, s. 223 – 236.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2009). Lekcje i zajęcia języka obcego dla uczniów niepełnosprawnych. W: H. Komorowska (red.) Skuteczna nauka języka obcego. Struktura i przebieg zajęć językowych. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo CODN, s. 232 – 246.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2006). Edukacyjne i terapeutyczne wartości lektoratu języka angielskiego dla studentów niesłyszących. W: K. Krakowiak, A. Dziurda - Multan (red.) Przekraczanie barier w wychowaniu osób z uszkodzeniami słuchu. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, s. 423 - 432.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2005). Specjalne potrzeby edukacyjne niesłyszących studentów uczących się języka angielskiego. W: K. Ciepiela (red.) Procesy poznawcze i język. Klasyczna problematyka - współczesne rozwiązania. Cognition and Language. Classical problems - contemporary solutions. Piotrków Trybunalski: Naukowe Wydawnictwo Piotrowskie, s. 159 - 168.

Domagała-Zyśk E. (2005). Lektorat języka angielskiego dla studentów niesłyszących w Katolickim Uniwersytecie Lubelskim. W: B. Harań (red.) Kształcenie studentów niepełnosprawnych w zakresie języków obcych. Teaching foreign languages to disabled people. Siedlce: Wydawnictwo Akademii Podlaskiej, s. 107 - 122.

Domagała–Zyśk E. (2003). Jak pomóc niesłyszącemu dziecku uczyć się języka angielskiego Szkoła Specjalna 4, 223 - 228.

Domagała–Zyśk E. (2003). Nauczanie języka angielskiego studentów z uszkodzonym narządem słuchu Audiofonologia XXIII, s. 127 - 136.

Domagała–Zyśk E. (2003). Nauczanie osób z uszkodzonym słuchem języka angielskiego jako języka obcego w Polsce i w innych krajach [W:] Z. Kazanowski, D. Osik - Chudowolska Integracja osób niepełnosprawnych w edukacji i interakcjach społecznych. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, s. 49 - 58.

There are a very good dictionary of technical terms in spanish sign language, this have separate little books for each discipline.

A book that may be of interest to you is William Stokoe (1978) Sign Language Structure, revised edition. Silver Spring, MD: Linstok Press.

Yes, personal choice, but the difference in cost to society between the two choices is massive (swings in the neighborhood of negative $2,000,000-3,000,000 to positive the same). I think as a profession our duty is to empower the deaf--I am the deafest of the deaf, but have taken advantage of the progress in empowerment through technology and rehabilitation so that I've been fortunate in being a net contributor in society. If we could focus on helping the upcoming generations of deaf to know of these empowerments (we actually have many deaf educators fighting it tooth and nail, much to my dismay), we would find that more and more will choose NOT to live as a dependent on society, and will go on and exceed the current dismal economic/education level of the deaf today.

But somehow the pseudo glorification in remaining deaf perpetuated by many deaf educators and deaf interpreters strikes too much terror in the hearts of many younger deaf people. Amazingy, when I speak to deaf groups and often to the chagrin of their normal hearing interpreters the young deaf swarm around me wanting to know how they can break out of their silent incarceration and advance their education. The ultra limited world of signing doesn't get them very far in a hurry, certainly nothing like being oral/aural. Given the choice on a level playing field of presentation, they want to know how to achieve academically, in a field of their choosing, and how to take advantage of the technology and resources available for the asking. They tell me they've been made to feel like a traitor if they wear hearing aids; most of them, like you, Nathan, can actually wear hearing aids and do very well with some training) OR, in the case of cochlear implantation they have been made to be terrified of getting one with horror stories of days of yore that have not existed for decades

Anyway, I think it a worthy project that Caitlin is pursuing. But the PRIMARY role of an audiologist is to empower in the oral/aural framework, and to be a support and mentor for those who want to bust out of the straight jacket of deafness.  

Melgar and others, there 's a sign language writing system created by me, supported by Brazilian deaf community, as my PhD research in 2008. The system is called ELiS (Escrita das Línguas de Sinais, that means Sign Language Writing). Although it's very young, we've achieved interesting results in using it. It's been used at Universidade Federal de Goiás, Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso e Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados, as a curricular subject and also at some schools where Brazilian sign language (Libras) is taught. We've been working on the translation of Brazilian literature for children, and our most recent project is the translation of a Brazilian sign language dicitionary, with over 10,000 entries. We're also working on a translator to run in Android phones, a simple one, just word to word.

You could check about ELiS here: http://repositorio.ufsc.br/handle/123456789/91819

 Hope I've helped.

And Adam, if Gallaudet is interested in a sign language writing system, please, get in touch.

I would refer you to the work of Diane Lillo-Martin http://homepages.uconn.edu/~dcl02005/DLM/Publications.html

and her recent doctoral student Helen Koulidobrova, who is working specifically in this area.

Hope this is helpful!

To make a MOOC accessible to Deaf and hard of hearing students, you would need to to offer picture in picture capability of a pre-recorded interpretation (by a qualified/certified interpreter) of the video content in the sign language of choice. For example, in the US it would be American Sign Language. For hard of hearing or oral students with hearing loss, captioning in English would also be needed. The reason machine type translation and augmentive communication won't work is because sign language is not just a collection of signs. It has a rich grammatical structure that incorporates facial expressions, mouth morphemes, classifiers and spatial use, in addition to actual sign choices. The reason captioning in English is not a solution for ASL users is because English is a second language, only in our educational system is not taught as a second language. You would also want to ensure that any quizzes or assignments have a video sign component for full accessibility.

The answer depends on which country you are in. I am guessing you are from South Africa. I think schools to offer a bilingual experience for Deaf children started in the Netherlands. In the US, for the past twenty years or so, we have been embarking on creation of charter schools which offer a bilingual experience for children who are Deaf. These schools use "bi-bi" curriculum (bilingual and bicultural). The aim as I understand it is to master English and American Sign Language, using ASL to help children learn English. The difficulty has been how to maintain funding and staffing for them because the enrollment tends to be so small. So many deaf children in the US now get cochlear implants and are educated in the public schools. To provide English models and boost enrollment,some bi-bi schools have encouraged children with normal hearing to attend (especially HCDP Hearing children of Deaf parents).

I am teaching my grandson sign because my daughter-in-law's brother is Deaf.