In an article published on the Discover Magazine website, author Sarah Katz challenges the view in the scientific community that deafness is a problem that needs to be cured, potentially by new CRISPR technology that could eliminate a TMC1 gene mutation.
Katz says that many deaf people “consider ourselves to be part of a vibrant cultural and linguistic minority group with American Sign Language, Cued American English (via Cued Speech) and other forms of visual communication at its center.” She added that the problem, as many see it, is with societal barriers that increase inaccessibility and discrimination toward deaf people, rather than deafness itself.
Additionally, Katz points out several studies which show that those bilingual in ASL and English may be less likely to develop Alzheimer’s, and ”those fluent in American Sign Language can more accurately recognize faces, have faster peripheral vision, reaction times, and directional movement discrimination than those who are not.”
To read the entire article, please click here.
Source: Discover Magazine
