Speaker: Glen Carlstrand --- Glen Carlstrand is a Certified American Sign Language professional for over the past 40 yrs. Interpreting for the Deaf community in various settings. An Instructor at High School level as well as Butler University. Presently President of the Swedish SVEA of Indianapolis. (Email: carlstrandgs@gmail.com) (Sponsored By: Linda Karwisch)(ID: 1909)
The history of American Sign Language will be explored: what country created it first, and where did it stem from, who created it, who decided the characters to be used, and are there other sign languages used. How long is the program to become a certified sign language interpreter.
Today’s Presentation
Program: Live and Zoom: History of American Sign Language
Speaker: Glen Carlstrand, Certified American Sign Language profession with 40 years interpreting experience including instructing at the high school and college level.
Introduced By: Linda Karwisch
Attendance: NESC: 95, Zoom: 22
Guest(s): Connie Hatherhill, Martin Meisenheimer, Neil Behrle
Scribe: Terry Ihnat
Editor: Ruth Schmidt
View a Zoom recording of this talk at:
Today's Program 093024
About Glenn
Glenn is originally from California, studied special education at USC and by chance found his mentor who taught deaf children, and after volunteering with her he was hooked. He mentions that often one finds one’s career through volunteering.
He found that teaching in ASL schools was his desired path as opposed to those that used speech and lipreading. There’s still a divide amongst teachers of the deaf on that subject.
The Indiana School for the Deaf was founded in 1843. Some children learn sign language at birth, some after entering school, some as adolescents and some later. At the Deaf Club of Indianapolis deaf people gather to play games, tell stories, and share experiences and memories. They network to learn about deaf culture, history, tradition, storytelling, signed literature and folklore.
At Southport High School, Glen taught the deaf, those with learning disabilities and autism. He took his students to schools with hearing students to have them demonstrate ASL finger spelling, numbers, colors, and basic signs in a total immersion experience.
The history of ASL
1779 Pierre Desloges wrote the first book on the deaf world by a deaf author. Charles-Michel de l'Épée, a French priest, founded the first free school for the deaf in the 1760s. L'Épée learned sign language from deaf people. He found shortcomings and developed a new method.
In Connecticut, Thomas Gallaudet brought Laurent Clerc from France to help at the Connecticut Asylum (at Hartford) for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons. In 1817 this became the American School for the Deaf. Here American sign language was born. It’s made up of Clerc’s sign language, Manual English, home signing by families, pantomime, regional signs, new signs generated in the setting of the school with children getting together and making up signs.
American sign language is its own language, different from English. It has syntax and phonology and was declared a language in 1965. At schools that offer it, ASL satisfies the credit for a foreign language. IU, Purdue, Butler, and Notre Dame offer ASL in Indiana. ASL is the 3rd or 4th fastest growing language in schools.
Phonology is the study of the pattern of sounds in a language and across languages. ASL’s phonology is expressed in parameters. ASL’s five parameters are: hand shapes, palm orientation, movement, location and non-manual signs. Glenn had us play an interactive game using parameters to form elephants. See the picture below.
How deaf children acquire language
Deaf children acquire language like hearing babies. Deaf babies develop language the same way as hearing babies and go through the same steps and stages. They babble before producing their first words in sign language. Pointing is a common sign. There is a lot of pointing – first to the object and then to oneself. Deaf children begin using single word signs and then develop into two words signs or two points. Many first signs are like “mother” and “eat”. Sometimes the first signs come 2 to 3 months before a hearing child’s first spoken word. Deaf brains and hearing brains are the same at birth, they develop based on environmental stimulus from the home and parents.
For more information on the deaf, Glen recommends the book A Journey into the Deaf-World, published in 1996.
Glen Carlstrand
Playing the “Elephant Game”
