As a child of deaf adults (CODA), Pia Taavila first learned to communicate when her deaf father fingerspelled the names of toys in her crib and her mother showed her the signs for objects in picture books. From this primary visual orientation, in combination with her own innate sense of imagery, Taavila crafted the lush verse featured in Moon on the Meadow: Collected Poems.
Taavila uses the graphic power of her poetry to evoke emotions about all aspects of existence — love, loss of love, family, death, and desire — feelings elicited through a lens attuned to the simple beauty of the natural. Most of the poems in Moon on the Meadow have been published at least once in established journals, testimony to the broad appeal of her passionate outlook on life. Yet, Taavila believes that her experiences as a CODA are essential to her ability to write at all. She never strays far from her home, her family, and the comforts they bring her through her art:
At a wedding, a flautist’s
languid notes lilt on the air.
My mother, who cannot hear,
leans forward, attentive
to the dip and sway of his body.
She signs to me:
It sounds like butterflies
Featuring
•More than 1,900 Sign Illustrations Including 327 New SignsThe first reference source that allows users to access ASL signs without previous knowledge of their English equivalents (far superior to those in most other English-ASL glossaries). Likely to become indispensable on many educators’ and students’ bookshelves.—CHOICE
Now, the bestselling resource The American Sign Language Handshape Dictionary has been completely revised with more than 320 new signs and a new DVD. This unique reference can help users locate a sign whose meaning they have forgotten, or help them find the meaning of a new sign they have just seen for the first time. It organizes more than 1,900 ASL signs by 40 basic handshapes and includes detailed descriptions on how to form these signs to represent the different English words that they might mean. ASL students can begin to track down a sign by determining whether it is formed with one hand or two. Further distinctions of handshape, palm orientation, location, movement, and other nonmanual body signals help them pinpoint their search while also refining their grasp of ASL syntax and grammar. A complete English word index provides the option of referring to an alphabetical listing of English terms to locate an equivalent sign or choice of signs.
The new DVD shows how each sign is formed from beginning to end. Users can watch a sign at various speeds to learn precisely how to master it themselves. Together, the new edition of The American Sign Language Handshape Dictionary and its accompanying DVD presents students, sign language teachers, and deaf and hearing people alike with the perfect combination for enhancing communication skills in both ASL and English.
Here’s the succinct handbook that will allow everyone to enjoy the beauty and functionality of American Sign Language. 1,000 Signs of Life: Basic ASL for Everyday Conversation illustrates a potpourri of intriguing and entertaining signs that can be grasped quickly and used to communicate with anyone familiar with ASL, deaf or hearing. Organized alphabetically in 17 categories, this handy paperback offers common signs for animals, food, clothes, people, health and body, the time, days of the week, seasons, colors, quantities, transportation and travel, and many more practical topics. Readers also can learn signs for community-related terms, holidays and religion, and for thoughts and emotions, signs that will offer them the opportunity to experience the full potential of ASL.
1,000 Signs of Life begins with a concise introduction to American Sign Language, including how it evolved and how its grammar and syntax work. Complementing this information are categories on signs for adjectives and adverbs, prepositions and locations, question words, and verbs and action words. Interspersed throughout the text are tips for signing, rules of signing etiquette, and engaging anecdotes about Deaf culture, Deaf people, and the Deaf community. 1,000 Signs of Life provides a fun, fast way to learn basic ASL signs and also offers easy-to-follow instructions and hints on how to use them in a variety of everyday situations. It's the perfect streamlined guide for signing ASL.
The Seventh Volume in the Deaf Lives Series
Elizabeth Thompson’s hearing loss was detected when she was in elementary school, and her hearing continued to deteriorate until she became completely deaf. Like many other hard of hearing and late-deafened individuals, her hearing loss complicated the general challenges of life. She struggled through school, worked as a secretary, married, had a daughter, and then found herself living as a single mother. She remarried, and soon after learned that she had contracted Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Despite these hurdles, Thompson always expressed her determination to enjoy the best life had to offer. Her astonishing exuberance might have gone unnoticed if she hadn’t accepted a new position as a reporter/columnist in 1998 for the Suburban News Publications (SNP). Day by Day: The Chronicles of a Hard of Hearing Reporter presents a marvelous blend of her experiences and best SNP columns that illustrate how she crafted her remarkable outlook.
In her columns, Thompson presented how she handled her hearing loss as a personal guide for readers. She used every stratagem available to function full-throttle – hearing aids, FM systems, lights for alarms, TTYs, even training her dog Snert. She also gently counseled readers on how to treat deaf and hard of hearing people with practical consideration and respect. Her pursuit of a fully realized life enabled her to do what she loved most, to meet and write about inspiring persons, many of whom are profiled in her memoir. Thompson eventually underwent cochlear implantation that restored 95% of her hearing, an exalting moment for her. Yet, Day by Day celebrates the entire arc of her life, a wonderful testament to her joyous resilience.
Research has shown that very young children can learn sign language before they learn to speak. Teach Your Tot to Sign: The Parents’ Guide to American Sign Language provides parents and teachers the opportunity to teach more than 500 basic American Sign Language (ASL) signs to their infants, toddlers, and young children. Hearing children, deaf children, and children with special needs can benefit from learning the elementary signs chosen for this handy pocket-size book. Young children who can communicate using simple signs become less frustrated and also bond in a special way with their parents. In teaching ASL to parents of toddlers and preschool teachers, author Stacy A. Thompson recognized the need for a book that could be used at home and in the classroom. Her book features fundamental signs of great appeal to young children and concise instructions on how to sign, including the critical importance of facial expression.
Teach Your Tot to Sign anticipates all of the common desires and interests of young children — food, pets, planes, trains, cars, and boats, games, holidays, vegetables, family — in short, nearly everything. Reflecting children’s endless curiosity, the vocabulary chosen ranges from signs for “baby,” “broken,” “clown,” “dinosaur,” “firefighter,” “gentle,” “hot,” “hurt,” “ketchup,” “pacifier,” “rooster,” “sad,” “spaghetti,” “wagon,” “water,” “wet,” to “you’re welcome,” and even “McDonalds.” This lively assortment of signs will help every child convey earlier in their development their thoughts, feelings, and desires to their parents and teachers.
The only child of deaf Puerto Rican immigrants, Andrés Torres grew up in New York City in a large, extended family that included several deaf aunts and uncles. In Signing in Puerto Rican: A Hearing Son and His Deaf Family, he opens a window into the little known culture of Deaf Latinos chasing the immigrant American dream. Like many children of deaf adults (codas), Torres loved his parents deeply but also longed to be free from being their interpreter to the hearing world. Torres’s story is unique in that his family communicated in three languages. The gatherings of his family reverberated with “deaf talk,” in sign, Spanish, and English. What might have struck outsiders as a strange chaos of gestures and mixed spoken languages was just normal for his family.
Torres describes his early life as one of conflicting influences in his search for identity. His parents’ deep involvement in the Puerto Rican Society for the Catholic Deaf led him to study for the priesthood. He later left the seminary as his own ambitions took hold. Torres became very active in the Puerto Rico independence party against the backdrop of the Civil Rights movement and protest against the Vietnam War. Throughout these defining events, Torres’s journey never took him too far from his Deaf Puerto Rican family roots and the passion of arms, hands, and fingers filling the air with simultaneous translation and understanding.
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