Do you have a funny voice? Using Auslan: Australian sign language, a minority group language other than English.

Sign language is not used exclusively by people who are deaf. This language is also very useful for people who are hearing and or voice impaired. Once a student is confident enough to use this language in public places, they are frequently surprised just how many people are familiar with both sign language symbols and finger spelling.

Auslan is officially recognized as the Deaf community’s language in Australia. As mentioned in previous articles, hearing people journeying through Auslan classes find the experience to be challenging, interesting, and loads of fun. All students in the current Deaf Services Queensland class in Cairns, Australia, have successfully completed level one introduction to Auslan. Our efforts to learn introductory level two in Auslan are progressing nicely and coming to a close with only three once weekly lessons remaining. We are encouraged to have voices ‘turned off’ during class and also during the coffee/tea break.

To date, weekly lessons have resulted in students accomplishing the following skills by signing in Auslan.

* How to make culturally appropriate introductions and gain another person’s attention.

* Hand shape: The point hand and Auslan language signing symbols associated with the point hand shape.

* Describing others: Individually using signing symbols with appropriate hand shapes describing features of a person to the class until the group correctly recognizes the person being described by the signer.

* Talking about family and occupations: Individually describing our own family group and personal occupational history to the class, receiving feed back to confirm the information given.

* Attributing qualities to others: Describing another person’s personal qualities; describing our own or someone else’s pet’s type, gender, personality and appearance; game playing in the style of charades using Auslan symbols to portray different personalities and desirable personal qualities for specific work roles.

If you are interested in learning Auslan or the official sign language in your country, find out where your nearest Deaf Services Office is and request information about language classes. Personally, sign language is a great support to me when my voice is very soft following treatment or vocal cords are spasming and others are unable to understand my speech. Sometimes, in busy or crowded areas, I choose to sign rather than attempt speech knowing others are unable to hear or understand me. If you do not yet know any formal sign language, using common sense gestures and facial expressions together with other body language soon gets your message across to others. If you suffer from spasmodic dysphonia I wish you well.

I hope this article is of interest to you. You are welcome to leave a comment or email me at s.j.bayliss@bigpond.com.au.

Sue Bayliss. Cairns, Australia.

Are you safe at home alone?

For those people who are deaf or with spasmodic dysphonia, have you wondered how you will manage to call for assistance in a time of crisis? What do we normally do when we find it difficult to speak on a telephone? How can we be sure we are able to act appropriately in a household emergency? Worrying thoughts now may be our ‘inner voice’ alerting us to the need for a protective behaviors personal safety plan in our home.

Teletypewriters or textphones commonly known as TTY telephones, or a computer with modem, are alternative communication systems. These systems allow people who are deaf or, who have a speech or hearing impairment, to have immediate access from their home telephone to police, fire or ambulance emergency services.

Speaking on a conventional home telephone is not possible if a person is either unable to hear or unable to speak. Spasmodic dysphonia occurs when vocal cords spasm during attempted speech. The spasms do not allow vocal cords to open and close in a normal pattern thus forming speech. Whilst deafness does not specifically prevent the flow of speech, it does affect speech and does not allow the person to hear normally. Either of these variables put a person in that situation at great risk of being unable to summon appropriate help when urgently required. Although people with severe speech and hearing impairment may have a range of behavioral strategies for communicating on the telephone, we basically rely on others in close vicinity to act on our behalf when unable to manage a telephone call ourselves.

Safety is compromised when a person finds themselves at home in a life threatening emergency or where time is crucial and they are unable to use a standard telephone. Dialing ‘000’ is of no advantage when the person needing emergency services is unable to communicate their need or receive instructions in response to their call.

Be an ‘actor’ not a ‘reactor’ when it comes to providing yourself with a protective behaviors personal safety plan for emergency situations requiring police, fire or ambulance assistance in your home. Act now in anticipation of providing access to safety by installing a TTY phone. TTY phones connect to an emergency call centre. In Australia the TTY emergency number is 106.

The Australian Communication Exchange (ACE) Australian National Relay Service (NRS) provide a fact sheet clearly displaying how to make a ‘106’ TTY call for emergency assistance. The information includes tips for clearly communicating what your needs are. There is provision for text to voice type and read calls, hearing carry over type and listen calls and, voice carry over speak and read calls. If you are deaf or have a hearing or speech impairment your action now will greatly reduce the risk of reacting inappropriately to a previously identified need for a suitable system of communication in your home during an emergency.

Sue Bayliss. Cairns, Australia.

No way mate! You are kidding me, right?

‘struth mate, how on God’s earth can people who are profoundly deaf, people who are hearing impaired, and people with severe speech impairment practice active listening skills in non-verbal conversation? You have got to be joking!

No! I am fair dinkum cobber. Nodding in response to what the other person is signing, or saying things like “uh huh,” “mm,” “really,” means the person the conversant is signing to, the listener, fulfills an important role in informing the other person that he or she is being understood. Clarifying with the original signer to ensure the message has been correctly understood takes the non-verbal language skills as above, that little bit further and is reflecting to the signer that they are understood.

This ‘active listening’ behavior displays the process of responding to the overall conversation. It is listening with your eyes, the symbolic interaction of communication through signs and interpretation, according to deaf language and cultural norms.

Maintaining eye contact is a strong cultural behavior of politeness and acknowledgment of what the other person is saying. Looking away or responding in a passive way by not reassuring the signer they are being heard will terminate the conversation and be considered socially unacceptable or very rude.

Active listening as explained above is sometimes called listening with the third ear, a holistic sense of perceptiveness. Becoming involved with a group of people signing is to experience living in a truly interactive environment. Signing is rich in symbolic meaning, feeling and expression. Indeed, a ‘living’ language.

There are useful links in the above article. I hope you find the articles on sign language, specifically Auslan, interesting. The Australian Deaf community do not consider themselves disabled but rather, acknowledge their minority Deaf language and culture with pride and celebrate annually in Australia during Deaf Week. The Deaf community are very much a part of multicultural Australia's social fabric. In addition to these links, check out the links on Cairns and Australia below.

Sue Bayliss. Cairns, Australia.