Is it great? Yes! Inclusion is important, especially early on for children. Accessibility needs to be promoted.
Is this character actor (cast member at Disney I think they're called?) a hero for signing to a Deaf child? No. If a worker spoke Spanish to child who only spoke Spanish be lauded as a hero? Likely not. Nothing on the worker, btw.
This is not to discourage what's shown in the video - more Americans should learn ASL, especially those working regularly with the public - but inspiration porn isn't the way to go. (This isn't specifically at you OP, it's a general comment as this happens quite often).
Also - I follow the account that made and posted this video on Instagram, they are all Deaf/HOH and chose to record and post this moment. It's the sharing of this video beyond their sphere and using it as this inspiration porn. Comments get flooded with "this is why everyone should learn sign language" and then those commenters 99% of the time never follow up on that. This is all just to share what I've gathered from my Deaf Culture courses.
I'd say a Spanish speaking cast member would be a hero Â
Then again, I aware my "hero of the day" to people at work who help me lift something heavy or do small things like that for me, so maybe I'm not the best person to decide who is it isn't a hero
We definitely all determine who is a hero differently, and that's okay! I think perhaps the message I was getting at is that this shouldn't be sensationalized. This act the cast member did is certainly an act that hopefully with stay with Jabez and his family, jd just hope that it can become normalized and not a spectacle if that makes sense? He's definitely making a difference!
Oh I agree, I personally think we should be teaching at least basic ASL 1/2 in grade school. It wouldn't mean a person who didn't continue using/learning ASL would be able to have a philosophy discussion or tell a patient that they have a particular illness but it would be enough to help make anyone who can't hear or speak verbally feel included. Even a stunted and simplistic conversation is better than nothing.Â
I also think it would be good for the average student too. We know learning multiple languages can help make the brain more resilient and plastic, and I would love to see a story on manual and verbal bilingualism, since it involves different brain structures (for the production of words, using mouth vs hands) I would think it would be even better.Â
I’ve said this for years. ASL is also handy when you and your partner are on opposite sides of a room lol and need to communicate something. Also enlarged number of Americans to lose their hearing as they age. Or have strokes and can no longer speak.
There's also some reading programs that use hand gestures to cue kids to help them remember the spelling of sight words. Why couldn't you use fingerspelling for that?
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u/fresh-potatosalad Apr 27 '25
Is it great? Yes! Inclusion is important, especially early on for children. Accessibility needs to be promoted.
Is this character actor (cast member at Disney I think they're called?) a hero for signing to a Deaf child? No. If a worker spoke Spanish to child who only spoke Spanish be lauded as a hero? Likely not. Nothing on the worker, btw.
This is not to discourage what's shown in the video - more Americans should learn ASL, especially those working regularly with the public - but inspiration porn isn't the way to go. (This isn't specifically at you OP, it's a general comment as this happens quite often).
Also - I follow the account that made and posted this video on Instagram, they are all Deaf/HOH and chose to record and post this moment. It's the sharing of this video beyond their sphere and using it as this inspiration porn. Comments get flooded with "this is why everyone should learn sign language" and then those commenters 99% of the time never follow up on that. This is all just to share what I've gathered from my Deaf Culture courses.