Deaf community

Today is National ASL Day! 🤟🏻🤟🏼🤟🏽🤟🏾🤟🏿

Did you know that the American School for the Deaf opened in Hartford, Connecticut on April 15, 1817?

“There, teachers and students worked together and, by intermingling Native American Signs, French Sign Language, and even Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language, American Sign Language (ASL) was born.”

National ASL Day is celebrated every year on April 15. This day celebrates and honors American Sign Language. ASL serves as the main sign language of Deaf groups in the United States.

Growing up hearing impaired, I learned some sign language from a good friend of mine who is deaf. She and her family and friends taught me many things that I utilized and was greatly helpful. A few years ago, my grandmother lived in a building for deaf and blind seniors, I had the wonderful opportunity of communicating with them through ASL and connecting with them on a personal level due to my own circumstances of being hearing impaired and legally blind. Last year, I took some online/remote classes through the Helen Keller National Center and one of them was for communications, where I expanded my knowledge of sign language and learned more. I even got to learn about haptic signs and tactile sign language which I would greatly benefit from due to my blindness. I am so grateful for all the people I have learned more from and am so excited to teach others about ASL!

This day is a great opportunity to celebrate and learn more about sign language.

Do you or someone you know uses sign language? Ask them to teach you some words and phrases. You never know when it may be useful!

Image Description: A light blue background with National American Sign Language Day April 15 in white font. On the bottom left corner of the image in a large white circle is a cartoon hand doing a sign for I love you.

#ASL #ASLDay #AmericanSignLanguage #NationalASLDay #NationalASLDay2022 #NationalAmericanSignLanguageDay #Inclusion #inclusionmatters #Accessibility #Language #Awareness #Deaf #DeafBlind #HearingLoss #HearingImpaired #Communication #Celebration #AmericanSchoolForTheDeaf #DeafCommunity #Opportunity #Love #people #communications #Students #Student #learning #AccessibilityForAll #AccessibilityMatters #Inclusivity #Inclusive #DeafCommunity #DeafAwareness #SignLanguage

We are aware of mental health struggles but what about those struggles within different communities?

On today's podcast episode, I speak with Kellina Powell. Kellina went deaf at the age of 4. As she got older she began to struggle with her mental health due to bullying and discrimination. She found it difficult to find deaf or hard of hearing mental health providers. Kellina now dedicates her life to being a mental health advocate for the deaf community. She explains the unique mental health challenges the deaf community faces. Listen to this episode to learn more about mental health within the deaf and what we can do to support and spread awareness.

accordingtodes.com/78-2

#DeafCommunity #Deaf #MentalHealthAwareness #podcastepisode #MentalHealth #mentalhealthpodcast

I thought this was worth sharing with you all.
I came across the original post which was posted by Russell Cairns on a group called Subtle Asian Traits

youtu.be/Bv-CIixQ6JE

It was worth watching because it shows how regardless of who you are, your age, no matter what obstacles your life throws at you....
each and everyone of us should be given an opportunity to thrive in life, have fun and learn something new!

#MentalHealth
#Empowerment
#DeafCommunity #Deafness

Most, if not all of us believe what I call the beautiful lie.
The lie says this is what really counts: to be wealthy, powerful, influential, attractive, admired, talented, popular, and, above all, valuable. We must make a life that is worth something to others. Worth more than others. The world screams at us to hurry up and matter. Our lives become a reaction to this lie.
According to the lie, we must not be nothings. To be good for nothing is to be as good as dead. And death is what we fear most. The death that says our lives have no value.
So we thrash about in a pool of comparison and one-upmanship. Our lives become burdened by the heaviness of getting it right. Our joy becomes brittle, and our hearts slowly break. The only possible outcome of this hurry-up-and-matter hustle is the slow crushing of our souls.
But God offers real life, where our brokenness is redeemed. He says we can abandon society’s beautiful lie and allow him to breathe new life into us, his beloved.
I think of the passage in Ezekiel where the Lord leads the prophet through a valley. Ezekiel wrote: “God’s Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. He led me around and among them—a lot of bones! There were bone all over the plain—dry bones, bleached by the sun” (37:1-2, msg). That’s our condition. We’re like dead, dry bones.
And yet God tells Ezekiel to prophesy—to reveal something by divine inspiration—over these bleached and broken things. The prophet does. And in the story the bones come alive. Broken things are made beautiful.
Here’s the point: God breathes life into our dead and imperfect things. So if we feel that we don’t measure up, that doesn’t mean we have to climb onto the build-your-worth treadmill. We already have worth. In God’s eyes. By his doing. And our worth is permanent, lasting far longer than any worldly attempt to uphold the beautiful lie could ever last.
#peopleofthesecondchance #wecallouttodrybones #comealivecomealive #worthy #HearingLoss #DeafCommunity

Colorado State University's student senate is proposing a bill that would support 'disability simulation' events. This would encourage students without disabilities to use wheelchairs or blindfolds during an event so they can understand what it's like to live with a disability.

Research supports that these events do not promote inclusion. They often reinforce a dangerous stigma that people with disabilities are somehow less capable and that we deserve pity or praise for simply doing our everyday tasks.

Does simply sitting in a wheelchair or being blindfolded make someone understand our experiences with disability? What about the social/emotional aspects that come with a disability that cannot be simulated?

Please share your thoughts on disability simulation events. Should this bill be passed? I want to hear YOUR voice and YOUR opinions.

A link to an article on the proposed bill: collegian.com/2020/01/category-news-ascsu-discusses-potentia...

#Disability #Inclusion #yourvoice #DisabilityTalk #DisabilityAdvocacy #InvisibleDisability #MobilityAids #Blindness #DeafCommunity #College

Toy Story 4 features a little boy who wears #CochlearImplants Thank you Disney and Pixar for the #Inclusion. #HearingLoss #DeafCommunity