"You speak very well for a deaf person."
Thanks. I worked very hard at it, I still do. If you really wanted to pay me a compliment, you could instead commend me on the fact that I'm the one carrying the burden of the conversation. I am capable of speaking and I have some residual hearing. I speak because I don't have a choice most of the time, as the majority of the population couldn't be bothered to learn sign language.
Yet another device has been trialled; this time a ring that can decode finger spelling into English through a smartphone app (I'm guessing). This is again technology stepping in. Let me rewind a little bit.
I learned sign in my early 20s, growing up I was mainstreamed in a public school. I did not have any deaf peers near me really, so I was pretty much always isolated most of the time. Fast-forward to today, I'm now in my 50s and no amount of finger spelling cards or YouTube videos produced by sorority sisters has moved the needle. We've had representation on TV for decades, most recently Switched At Birth, which I thought was a commendable YA series.
Perhaps this new ring idea might help, it might not because I see 2 points of failure: The ring itself malfunctioning, and the other person not having a compatible phone to download the app, or horrors, even willing to do so.
We could just learn sign language and avoid all of this nonsense, but the hearing people won't do it, so we're back where we started.
