<aside> 💡 Nagish (’Accessible’ in Hebrew) is a free service that makes communication more accessible to people who are Deaf, Hard-of-hearing, or people with speech impediments.
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<aside> 💡 We made this guide to help new hearing team members onboard with us. People seemed to like it, so we made it publicly available.
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<aside> 💡 This guide does not aim to be complete. Deaf/HoH culture is too rich and broad to fit into a single document. The best way to understand Deaf culture is to get involved with the deaf community, learn sign language, and work with deaf people.
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<aside> 💡 If you have any comments, feedback, ideas, or suggestions about this document, please let us know at [email protected]
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American Sign Language (ASL): A visual language predominantly used in the United States and parts of Canada that utilizes articulated hand movements along with grammatically relevant non-manual markers such as facial expressions, body/head movements, and fingerspelling to express an infinite set of utterances. ASL is a true language, and has its own grammar, syntax and vocabulary which are separate from English. Like all languages, ASL evolves and grows over time.
CART (Communication Access Real-Time Translation): Also called Real-time captioning, CART uses qualified captioners with specialized equipment to print a word-for-word version of spoken language on a laptop computer, TV monitor or overhead screen.
deaf (with a lowercase “d”) or “little d deaf”: May refer to a medical term used to describe a significant hearing loss, and is independent of an individual’s use (or lack of) hearing aids or signing preference. However a person with a significant hearing loss who uses a variety of communication modalities (ASL, speechreading, total communication, speaking, etc.) may also identify as deaf.
Deaf (with an uppercase “D”) or “big D Deaf”: Used to describe a particular group of individuals who use American Sign Language as their primary language and have a shared culture. A person who self-identifies as Deaf does not view themselves as impaired or disabled. Identifying oneself as Deaf is independent of his/her level of hearing loss.
Deaf Culture: A group of individuals that use American Sign Language and have shared attitudes, beliefs, goals, and values. This is a positive term, and represents pride and communal identity. Just like members of any culture, those who belong to the Deaf culture have their own art, stories, social mores, and entertainment.
Fingerspelling: Each letter of the English alphabet has a corresponding hand shape in ASL (called “The Manual Alphabet”). Fingerspelling is when these letters are used to spell out a word (ex. spelling F-L-O-W-E-R instead of using the sign for FLOWER). Fingerspelling is used when discussing proper nouns, for emphasis, or when there is no corresponding sign in ASL for an English word.
Hard of Hearing: A term that has a variety of definitions, but is typically used as a self-identifier by individuals who have a hearing loss and prefer auditory language and spoken English for communication. Sometimes hard of hearing individuals may also use American Sign Language, and other times individuals may identify themselves as hard of hearing to purposefully separate themselves from being a member of the Deaf Community.
Speechreading (lipreading): A technique of understanding speech by visually interpreting the movements of the lips, face, tongue, and body movements in conjunction with using context and residual hearing. Speechreading alone is not an accurate form of communication.
Terms No Longer Used
Deaf and Dumb: An individual’s level of hearing and intelligence are not related.
Deaf-Mute: An inaccurate term as the function of the auditory system is separate from the function of the vocal system. A Deaf individual has the ability to use their vocal cords (unless there is specific and separate damage). Furthermore, many Deaf people use vocalizations, even if their primary language is ASL.
Hearing Impaired: A term that was recently considered to be the politically correct way of describing all individuals with a hearing loss, and is still (incorrectly) used by people today. This term is viewed as negative because it focuses on what an individual can’t do. It implies that hearing is normal, and anything different as substandard, or impaired. The preferred term by this group of individuals is “Hard of Hearing.”
Lipreading: This term implies that the lips are the only thing involved in spoken communication. In reality, speech involves the lips, tongue, teeth, cheeks, eyes, gestures and body language. The preferred term is Speechreading, however many people still use lipreading (and mean speechreading) out of habit.