Positive Impacts Of American Sign Language

American Sign Language: Positive Impact on the American School System Throughout the world, many people are unable to communicate with each other due to the language barrier between them. When doing business or talking with people from other countries, most need an interpreter or translator of the certain language in order to understand each other. A language barrier is an obstacle within the United States of America as well between the deaf and hearing impaired and the hearing people. Most people do not know American Sign Language (ASL) and are not given the opportunity to learn Sign Language while in school. More colleges are starting to offer American Sign Language classes, but a lot of elementary and secondary education level schools

These languages are useful to learn, but most Americans will only be using Spanish in their future. Latin and French are languages that are not often used or heard in the United States, but Americans are still able to learn these languages in school. There are people within the United States that most people cannot communicate with because they are not given the opportunity to learn ASL. If there were more opportunities in lower education schools to learn Sign Language, the language barrier between the deaf community and hearing community could be diminished. American Sign Language is an important course that should be available to learn at all levels of education. ASL is a language of the hands and body that has been around since the mid-eighteenth century. It has been changed and developed into the language it is today. Even before Sign Language was discovered, according to the

Approximately one in five Americans have hearing loss and three out of every 1,000 children are born deaf or hearing impaired (“Careers Working with the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing”). These people use sign language as a way to communicate with others around them. Around 70 million people, deaf and hearing, in the world use Sign Language as their first spoken language (“Sign Language”). Many other people, not including the deaf, use Sign Language as a first spoken language as well, yet some schools still do not offer ASL as a class in most levels of education. Learning Sign Language is a useful tool to be able to communicate with numerous people and help the deaf and hearing impaired community feel less isolated due to the fact that a lot of people do not know and are not given the opportunities to learn ASL. According to the Occupational Outlook Handbooks, a website from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, declares “Careers in Interpreting and Translating will grow 29% from 2014 to 2024, which is a fast rate” (“Interpreter and Translators”). There are also numerous careers that can involve the use of Sign Language such as a Sign Language Interpreter, Speech-Language Pathologist, Psychologist, Employment Counselor, Social, Worker, Child Care Worker, Audiologist, and Teacher (“Careers Working with the Deaf and the Hard of Hearing”;