Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Quiet Mouths, Loud Hands

The purpose of this post is twofold: to give some reflections on this and this, and to put a whole other spin on it that is more related to my own personal experience.

 First  of all, I'm not autistic, but I know many people who are, and they are all awesome.  Second  of all, I've  seen these types of tactile techniques used on many other people, including myself for muscle stimulation in various other ways. So  I have several issues  with it in that regard as well.

 While I understand  that the principal behind this is all well and good to teach people the more “appropriate” times to touch things, I feel like this could be taken advantage of to stifle communication and interaction on  so many occasions. A very good friend of mine always fidgeted with his hands on the desk when he was nervous  in school. I never understood why all the other kids moved 50 feet away from him. That's just what he did. I remember one day when somebody yelled at him for unconsciously fiddling with their pencil. He put it back and apologized, but this person took it as some kind of personal violation. I was amazed.
 So basically, autistic people are awesome, and I'm so glad that they, not so-called representatives, are speaking out for themselves in various ways.  But this first  post brings up a whole other set of issues to me.

The Quiet Hands philosophy  ignores a whole other form of communication. Sign language!

 At the beginning of this school year, after  a renewed interest in the last 2 years, I decided to officially learn ASL. Now, you're probably thinking “why the hell would a person with extreme spasticity and motor planning issues ever want to do that? The answer: Because it's fun!

 Okay, well really that's only half the answer. The other half has to do with the fact that I have met a lot of nonverbal  kids and adults who could hear but used a form of basic signing to communicate. I had been around it for quite a while in the SpEd classrooms  and I wanted to learn more.

 A lot of people, myself included, always have preconceived notions of culture they know nothing about. Not knowing a lot about the history behind these people, or, well, really anything else except for the alphabet, I decided to learn about this culture in conjunction with the disability culture, when, as previously mentioned, I started working at only the 3rd funded student-run Disability and Deaf Culitural Center in the country (you can learn more about us here). What I did not expect to find in this new world was discrimination,  ableism and later on,  even, respect and support.

 When I first started, the instructors wanted to know something along the lines of my initial question: why would somebody who has problems moving their hands even want to learn our language? She can't succeed in this class. Ironically, though, the thing that I thought would be my greatest defeat is now actually one of my strongest communities  here . Although it is a mixed group of students (hearing, Deaf, hard of hearing), our ASL Club welcomes anyone to learn about the culture.   If you would've asked me a year ago, I never would've said that some stupid school club would have acted like a family, both within the field of study and elsewhere. This has influenced me so much so thanks to a recent lecture that I attended on the evolution of Deaf culture that I am currently considering minoring in ASL and Deaf Studies, and learning more about the intersections of the Deaf and disabled labels and marginalized oppressions.

Although we come from different histories and sources of pride, there is a lot we can do to collaborate together in our advocacy and try to bring an end to ableism and audism.

Besides all of that academic mumbo-jumbo, do you know how cool it is to know that someone understands you and supports you without ever having spoken a single word to you? It's pretty freaking cool!

   So if your question is: Is she having a seizure over there  in the corner by  herself?  the answer in my case is no,  I'm probably just practicing signing, having a conversation with myself, or someone I know.

 Yes,  my hands are very loud.  Deal with it!

 PS:  This post  was somewhat inspired by a short film that we screened this weekend about what it would be like to be the last one in a culture. This hit home in so many ways. To watch it online, go here.

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