Here’s a post that might motivate you to learn sign language from a new point of view. – Occasionally, people who work in jobs that serve the public surpass the call of duty in order to provide their customers with remarkable care and attention. One particular case involves 2 kind waitresses from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, who made a Hard-of-hearing boy’s fourth birthday a bed that he and his mom won’t ever forget.
Young Octavius Mitchell Jr., together with his uncle and his mom, Shatika Dixon, recently frequented a Texas Roadhouse restaurant in Murfreesboro to commemorate the boy’s 4th birthday. Octavius has been deaf since birth. While the three were eating their meal, their server Kathryn Marasco saw that Shatika was using sign language to communicate with her son. Kathryn also noticed that the boy was wearing a hearing aid. As she mentioned, “I’m sitting there, and I’m watching from a distance, and the mom is signing to the little boy, [and] I noticed he had his hearing aids”. She later made a decision to Do something special to add a little excitement to Octavius’ special day.
The moment Kathryn realized that it was Octavius’ birthday and that he was hard of hearing, she asked her co-worker Brandie White if she knew the right way to say “Happy birthday” in sign language. Brandie said that she didn’t, but like Kathryn, she wished to help Octavius have an extra bit of fun during his birthday celebration.
Brandie, who studies speech-language pathology and audiology at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, then went to YouTube on her cell phone. She and Kathryn wanted to learn sign language of a special phrase for the birthday boy.
After looking up how to express “Happy birthday” in American Sign Language (ASL), Kathryn and Brandie soon got all of the right hand gestures down. After that, the 2 waitresses went up to Octavius’ table to show him what they had learned.
Both waitresses not just wished Octavius a happy birthday verbally. They also did it in a different way that was special to him, thus putting a big smile on the boy’s face and also making his mother really glad. “Happy birthday to you,” the servers signed in ASL. Octavius and his mom were greatly impressed with the gesture. “Everybody thinks we’re crazy when we’re out talking and we’re signing. So it’s really important to me that someone noticed that and picked up on that and made that special just for him, my baby,” Shatika said.
Being a customer support representative for a local company, Shatika knows firsthand exactly how vital it is to continuously give the utmost in care for clients in all of the types of businesses. This background made her especially grateful for Kathryn and Brandie’s unusual act of compassion toward her son. Shatika added that the interaction with the servers was the first time people other than her and his teacher had used sign language with Octavius.
The Benefits of Hearing People Learning and Using ASL
As in the case of Octavius, communicating with Deaf and Hard-of-hearing (HOH) individuals by means of ASL could make them happy and more fully included in the larger (hearing) society. By merely observing people come in contact with them through the use of their language, the Deaf and HOH population can have a greater feeling of inclusion.
Hearing People Who Sign Can Enhance Customer Relations
This view is shared by Vicki Robinson, a hearing person who has been teaching physics to Deaf college students for over forty years. In response to the Quora question, “What do Deaf people think about people who aren’t deaf learning sign language?” Vicki said, “I’ll defer to the Deaf Quorans here for the definitive answer. But my experience is that Deaf people appreciate hearing people learning ASL.”
It is Best to be Invited Before Entering a Deaf Space
Vicki also shares that her daughter’s case is one that involves communicating with Deaf people in the hearing world. Even so, every time a hearing person who can do sign language goes into a space where only Deaf people are around, the hearing individual should not think that they will be automatically welcomed. This is due to the fact that hearing people do not share Deaf people’s life experiences. A good example would be connecting to a small group of Deaf individuals at a club with no specific invite. And so, in a Deaf space, it is advisable to not think that one is accepted, even among people that one knows well.