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Sign Language |
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Researched by Dalainee
V. |
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Research Summary
American Sign Language (ASL) is believed to be the third most used
language in the United States. People who are deaf or hearing impaired
mostly use it. People who use ASL form words or letters with their
fingers or hands.Deafness
Various diseases and infections, sometimes even pregnancy
complications, can cause deafness. Deafness can be a horrible
disadvantage when you’re a child, having to use signs like pretending
to drink to get water. Until you go to school and learn sign
language you have to do many things harder than people with normal
hearing have to do. It can also be a disadvantage in trying to find a
job when you’re an adult.History
In 1817 Laurent Clerc and Thomas Hopkins Gaullaudet created
American Sign Language. There was no sign language in the USA before
they brought sign language back from France. Surprisingly Thomas had
joined Yale University not to help the deaf but to become a minister.
When he moved into his new home in Hartford, Connecticut he found a
deaf little girl was his next-door neighbor, Alice Cogswell. He tried
to teach her how to write and how to read, but with no success. The
deaf girl’s father, Dr. Cogswell, asked Thomas if he could start a
school for the deaf to teach them a language to talk with. Thomas
accepted and he was sent to Europe to find a method of talking for the
deaf.He went to many different cities and towns trying to find someone who would teach him their special new language. But they all stubbornly said no, until at last he reached France where he found a town with a few people who would teach him sign language. His teachers were Jean Massieu, Laurent Clerc, and abb’e Secard. Two years after he found them he left with one of his teachers, Laurent Clerc, to help him teach once they had made a school for the deaf. Once they got back to the US everything went according to plans. They opened a school for the deaf and taught many years, until they died.
Then in late 1800’s Thomas Edison banned American Sign Language from an influence for people to use their mouths and ears instead of their hands. It lasted many years until people started to see how hard they had made deaf lives. During that period of time, the deaf children were often slapped on the hand (very hard) with a ruler when found using their hands by the teacher. They often had to sign under their desks to communicate. That was the hardest period of time in deaf peoples’ lives.
The Human Ear
There are three parts of the human ear, the outer ear, the middle ear,
and the inner ear. The outer ear is the part we can see with our eye.
The middle ear is the part between the inner ear and the outer ear. The
inner ear is the part that is connected to the brain.The Outer Ear
The first part of the outer ear is the slight dent above the ear canal.
It is called the helix canal. Underneath the helix canal is the concha.
It was named concha because of the way it looks, like a shell. “Concha”
means shell in Latin. Beneath the concha is the ear canal. The ear
canal’s scientific name is external auditory meatus. “Meatus” means
natural opening in Latin. An inch into the ear canal it turns into the
middle ear.The
Middle Ear
The ear canal is lined with hair and sweat glands. The sweat glands
make earwax. Earwax’s more scientific name is cerulem. The hair and
earwax are just used to keep bugs and such out of your ear. The ear
canal ends at the tympanic membrane, or the eardrum. The eardrum looks
like a thin strip of skin. It also looks like the head of a tiny drum.
It is filled with nerves and blood vessels. The eardrum is a very
sensitive part of the human ear. If you were to harm the eardrum in any
way it could easily lead to loss of hearing. Behind the eardrum is an
air filled space. There is only the ossicular chain in it. The
ossicular chain is made up of three tiny bones. The bones are the
smallest bones of the whole human body. They are named after what they
look like. The first one in the chain is called the “malleur”, which
means hammer in Latin. The second one is called the “incus”, which
means anvil in Latin. And the last one is “stapes”, which means stirrup
in Latin. The first two are hard to see why they are named after tools
but the last one is very easy to see why it is named after a stirrup.After the ossicular chain there is the eustachian tube. The eustachian tube is created of bone and cartilage. It is lined with hair cells called cilia. The eustachian tube then leads to a cavity in the back of your mouth called the pharnx. The pharnx is where the middle ear ends. The Pharnx then leads to the esophagus, which is also known commonly as the windpipe. The windpipe lets mammals breathe through their noses as well as their mouths.
The Inner Ear
what lets a person turn, stand, and hear. It does that by a series of nerves in the outer ear that send signals to your brain every time you move your head. It tells your brain where your head is, and knowing what position your head is in is very important because it lets your body balance better.
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