Medical American Sign Language Phrasebook
American Sign Language is the most common language of Deaf Americans and Canadians. It is their native language, not merely a substitute for English words. In fact, many Deaf people are not fluent in written English and cannot simply write notes to communicate.
Encounters with medical professionals require excellent communication, and Deaf patients may need to have a highly qualified professional interpreter present -- and in the US, they have a legal right to this at the medical provider's expense, if necessary to communicate effectively in the situation involved.
On the other hand, there are many minor encounters where hearing and Deaf people will need to communicate. Scheduling an interpreter to be present for these would be impractical. It is a tremendous convenience for Deaf patients to be able to communicate in their native language in such situations.
Many hearing people are interested in learning ASL. Movies like Children of a Lesser God or Mr. Holland's Opus, Linda Bove's regular appearances on Sesame Street, as well as observing simultaneous interpreters on TV and in public meetings have provided a tantalizing taste of this beautiful language.
As with any language, becoming fluent requires years of practice communicating with native speakers. On the other hand, ASL is a unique language in that it is adapted to being learned quickly by people who are not children of native speakers. Unlike ethnic languages like English, there is a minimum of complex rules. Most Deaf people don't have their parents spending years teaching them not to use this or that wrong syntax (the way English speaking parents have to teach their children not to say "tooken" or "more better.").
ASL verbs don't vary with tense, person or number -- you indicate the time something occurred when you begin signing, and all verbs are assumed to be in agreement until you change the time with a new sign. Nouns, adjectives and verbs that are derived from each other and have variant forms in other languages (flight, flying, fly) usually have the same or very similar signs in ASL, and there are minimal changes for gender. Plurals are formed by repeating the last movement of a sign. Pronouns are simpler yet more specific -- when you mention the noun you are going to talk about, you point to a place in the space around you, and that place will stand for that noun until you redefine it. There is usually no need to use the words "a," "an," or "the," so you don't. There are not dozens of synonyms with minor variations in meaning, since the facial expression and body language of the signer modifies the word being signed. Adverbs and adjectives are often unnecessary altogether, since the way you sign the verb or noun they refer to tells you something about it already.
Because English is the usual second language of Deaf Americans, any sign one doesn't know can be fingerspelled and usually be understood. What's more, most Deaf signers are extremely gracious about hearing people's efforts to learn their language, and regard the attempt as a compliment rather than being offended by any errors. All in all, it is far easier for hearing people to learn some ASL than for Deaf people to learn to read lips and speak.
The purpose of this page is to collect some of the resources of the World Wide Web to make it easier for medical professionals to get some basic vocabulary in American Sign Language. Most of the signs you will see are from Michigan State University's American Sign Language Dictionary, Randy Stine's Animated ASL Dictionary, Handspeak (the DeafWorldWeb American Sign Language Dictionary), or Harley's Public Services Pages / Begin to Learn Sign Language. I have added signs from various published sources, as well as comments to help explain how ASL signs are used. I recommend checking some of the web pages I mentioned for more signs as well as general information about ASL and Deaf culture. It is especially useful to begin by learning the letters of the alphabet and numbers -- not only to fingerspell unknown words and medical terms that have no ASL equivalent, but also because they often form the root handshapes of ASL words. The verbal descriptions of the signs you will see assume you are familiar with these handshapes. Check out GG Wiz's ASL Fingerspelling Practice or American Sign Language Fingerspelling for the manual alphabet and receptive fingerspelling practice drills.
It's important to understand that ASL was suppressed for nearly 100 years due to the educational theory that prohibiting deaf children from using signs would force them to learn to read lips and speak. Deaf signers once feared their language would die out entirely. ASL still spread across the country as immigrants spread west, but many regional variants developed due to lack of opportunities for Deaf communities in different cities to interact.
Only in the last few decades has it been understood that ASL is an independent language, not merely a pantomime of English, and that it has distinct rules of construction. Deaf children of Deaf parents are recognized to perform particularly well in school, showing the value of early language acquisition as a springboard to learning written English later. Schools for the deaf now often employ Deaf teachers who have trained in universities with other Deaf students from across the country, providing a means for ASL to become more uniform throughout the continent. Still, you will encounter difficulties with local differences in signs. Since ASL is always communicated in person, you will be able to watch the face of the person with whom you are communicating for any evidence of confusion, and can clarify your meaning or learn the correct local sign as necessary.
Like most of the people visiting this page, I myself am a beginner. I have few opportunities to communicate with Deaf people in ASL, and have not yet been able to find time for my beeper and me to attend a formal course in ASL. But in the tradition of "See one, do one, teach one," I would like to share what I have been able to learn in my spare time to help other medical professionals better communicate with their patients. I welcome any comments and criticisms, especially from fluent signers, so I can improve my skills and pass on what I learn.
Eileen K. Carpenter, MD
Go to the Medical ASL Phrasebook
A Medically-Oriented Index to the MSU Commtech Lab's ASL Browser
Tips to Help Medical Professionals Who Serve Deaf Patients
Links
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