During March in La Paz: Mexican Sign Language

Sand Sculptures made by local artist during Spring break vacations

as part of "Semana Santa" festivities


Be strong.........help others with love
3rd L.S.M (Mexican Sign Language) Course

I just finished the course given by Miss Josefina Carballo Burquez who lost her hearing when she was 2 years old due to meningitis and an overdose of the medication prescribed for it. She practically learned the language by herself and formed the first association in the state to help people with language disabilities. An awesome woman!

Language is defined as the use by human beings of voice sounds and often written symbols representing these sounds in organized combinations in order to express and communicate thoughts and feelings. I would add signs to this definition of language, it is also defined as a system of words formed from such combinations and patterns used by people of a particular country or by a group of people with a shared history or set of traditions.
Josefina Carballo learned most of the language in an autodidact manner, due to the lack of L.S.M teachers and programs for hearing disability in the state. She has contributed to educate hundreds of children, which reminds me of the effect of a teacher in one's life.

A teacher affects eternity; we can never know where his/her
influence ends.

William Ellery Channing

For many decades, speech language professionals have used signs simultaneously with speech in treating children who are slow to develop spoken communication. Using Sign Language has also proven to be a successful intervention with children with special-needs including Down syndrome, and autism.

Children with a variety of performance levels can be taught to utilize sign language. Many abnormal behaviors related with autism and other developmental disabilities, such as aggression, tantrumming, self-injury, anxiety, and depression, are often attributed to an inability to communicate to others. Sign language allows the child to communicate using signs and may motivate the verbal language process. Another possible benefit of teaching a child to sign may be the facilitation of their attentiveness to social gestures of others as well as of themselves. Teaching sign language to children with autism and other developmental disabilities does not interfere with learning to talk, but teaching sign language along with speech has proven to speed up spoken communication.

Parents of hearing children are discovering sign language is beneficial for children in a wide variety of situations. The practice of teaching hearing children sign language will continue to gain popularity throughout the years.

Sign languages provide a unique opportunity to study the different ways the brain processes auditory and visual information. American Sign Language (ASL), for example, is similar to spoken languages such as English, but its meaning is transmitted in a much different way.

Spoken language tends to be processed mainly by the left cerebral hemisphere. When ASL is used, structures in both the left and right hemispheres are activated. Moreover, spoken language appears to have a critical period when exposure to language is essential for its proper development. When someone is not exposed to language as a child, it is likely that this person will never fully develop language abilities. Also, if this critical period for language is missed, the left side of the brain will not be devoted to language, as it is in most people. In other words, if structures in the left side of the brain are not recruited for spoken language processing by a certain age, they never will be. According to a study from Aaron J. Newman and his colleagues at the University of Oregon, there may be a similar critical period involved with processing of ASL in the right hemisphere. This research shows that the right angular gyrus is highly activated during ASL processing in people who learned the language from birth, but not in those people who learned it after puberty.

The researchers tested two groups of subjects. All subjects could hear and all were native English speakers. However, one group of subjects ("native signers") had deaf parents and therefore learned ASL from birth. The other group ("late signers") learned spoken English in childhood and learned ASL much later in life. While subjects viewed alternating English and ASL sentences, their brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). When viewing English sentences, both groups showed activation in many regions of the left hemisphere. When viewing ASL sentences, both groups showed activation in left hemisphere regions as well as in the superior temporal sulcus in the right hemisphere. Only native signers, however, showed reliable activation in the angular gyrus of the right hemisphere.

This study is further evidence for the importance of the right hemisphere in understanding signed languages. It is also the first demonstration of a critical period for language processing in the right hemisphere. It seems that for both spoken and signed languages, the age at which the language is learned affects how the brain will be organized. Certain brain structures are normally used in language processing, but if the language is acquired after a certain age, these structures can no longer be recruited for this purpose. These results are important for our understanding of how human language is processed and for how the brain develops and changes.

Dr. Corina's research focuses on understanding the neural bases of higher cognitive function, specifically language and memory. He is interested in specifying functional and neuroanatomical models of human behavior and elucidating the degrees of plasticity within systems related to language and memory. His research encompasses psychology, linguistics, computational modeling and neuroscience, incorporating techniques that include self-designed behavioral tests, functional imaging (fMRI and functional spectroscopy), cortical stimulation and single unit recording. Investigating the neural plasticity of primary human language areas in the brain, Dr. Corina conducts studies that compare language processing in deaf users of American Sign Language and hearing users of spoken language. He is also investigating the perceptual and memory systems that underlie human actions, including American Sign Language. These studies make use of memory paradigms to understand the similarities and differences between processing different classes of human actions. Dr. Corina collaborates on research in adults with focal epilepsy to shed light on the neural systems involved in performing language and memory tasks. He also designs paradigms for functional neuroimaging to investigate language function in children with learning disabilities.

http://mindbrain.ucdavis.edu/people/corina

In this paper we review evidence for frontal and parietal lobe involvement in sign language comprehension and production, and evaluate the extent to which these data can be interpreted within the context of a mirror neuron system for human action observation and execution. We present data from three literatures--aphasia, cortical stimulation, and functional neuroimaging. Generally, we find support for the idea that sign language comprehension and production can be viewed in the context of a broadly-construed frontal-parietal human action observation/execution system. However, sign language data cannot be fully accounted for under a strict interpretation of the mirror neuron system. Additionally, we raise a number of issues concerning the lack of specificity in current accounts of the human action observation/execution system.

http://mindbrain.ucdavis.edu/labs/Corina/publications/Corina2006a

Getting started as an interpreter

Learning sign language is different from learning to interpret. Many people are able to master two languages and become fluently bilingual without learning to interpret. Perhaps they will use their bilingual skills in some other field -- teaching, counseling, or to communicate with friends or relatives. In order to become an interpreter, certainly it is necessary to become bilingual -- to master both of the languages that are to be interpreted. But merely becoming bilingual is not enough.

In addition to the bilingual skill one must also master the skill of interpreting, which is a separate skill. Beyond merely being able to use one language or the other, the interpreting process requires that both languages be held in consciousness at the same time, with constant interactive reference while listening intently to an ongoing feed of incoming informational content. Just the attentive listening process is difficult enough. When I am asked about the interpreting process by those who have never done it, I often suggest they try listening for 30 or 40 minutes or so to something relatively simple, such as a political speech or religious sermon which uses fairly common, everyday vocabulary, and try to repeat everything the speaker says. Add to that the process of having to analyze the grammar, syntax, morphology and vocabulary of the source language, reconstruct an equivalent in the target language that matches the mood, inflection, tone and cultural perspective of the speaker -- and all the time you are doing that, the speaker of the source language is still speaking, so you have to be listening to the new material while analyzing, reconstructing and speaking to the recipient in the target language. The two processes have to go on simultaneously, yet you must do it smoothly, seamlessly and try to capture the mood and inflection and tone of the speaker.

As with learning sign language itself, learning to interpret can be greatly helped by taking classes -- formal instruction in the skills and protocols of the interpreting process that are distinct from and in addition to the necessary bilingual skills. Most community colleges and four-year universities have excellent interpreter training programs. In addition, I also recommend taking a broad range of general education courses. While a college degree (or any formal training, for that matter) is not strictly required to become an interpreter (and many top interpreters became proficient even before such courses were offered), such courses are extremely valuable and it would be foolish for even the most skilled native speaker of ASL to miss out on the critical professional insights gained in such courses. Because this formal guidance is now available, no one today should attempt to become an interpreter without it, and in fact in the near future it will become a mandatory prerequisite for obtaining national certifications. Furthermore, because interpreters must be able to handle a wide range of situations and a wide range of vocabulary and subject material, the more education you have, the better you will be able to deal with this vast diversity of material.

The real key to becoming an interpreter, however, is to DO IT. So many times I have seen excellent beginning interpreters successfully complete an ITP, get a job at an agency, then because of fear or anxiety about real-life interpreting situations they drift into administration or dispatch or some other role that is valued and appreciated but doesn't make full use of their investment in interpreter training. While classes and training are critically important both for mastering the language and developing interpreting skills, most important to get the hands-on experience of real-life interpreting. DO IT! Don't compare yourself to more experienced interpreters -- everyone was a beginner once, and those of us who have achieved some measure of success owe that in large part to those who encouraged us through our first wobbly starts. Work with supportive Deaf people and supportive experienced team interpreters who will provide supportive encouragement and positive feedback, in situations APPROPRIATE FOR A BEGINNER when a qualified professional interpreter is not available and with Deaf consumers who are comfortable working with you in that situation. Again, the important thing is to make sure that the situation is appropriate for a beginner -- needless to say, you would not want to be working in a life-threatening medical situation, or in a legal situation where someone is accused of a serious crime, or a situation that is overly technical or simply where the situation is beyond your current ability to handle. The Deaf consumer(s), or the agency that employs you if you have been hired to begin your career, play a crucial role in making that determination.