operationoutwardreach.org

When people asked me why I took ASL in college, I always said it was to satisfy my needed foreign language credit. The truth was that I wanted to help people. The Deaf community dislikes being referred to as disabled in any way, and in general resents that mentality that they need to be helped or assisted through life. But when I was a kid, I had an experience that made me wish I knew sign language.
I was in church, and we had a physically and mentally handicapped boy visiting our class. He was very disruptive, and I’m sure my teacher was extremely frustrated as he kept disrupting the class by making loud noises or getting out of his chair. He kept trying to sign something, over and over again, and because none of us knew ASL, we kept ignoring him and he got increasingly annoyed and his behavior got worse, until his mother finally was called and he left our class.
What was he saying? What did he want? If someone had known, I think he would have been so happy. Maybe we become disruptive when we are not heard, when we are dismissed.