How and Why I Chose to Communicate with Cued American English

I have received a few inquiries about my American Sign Language background. As a junior and senior in high school I attended Post Secondary which is a form of receiving free college education while you are still in high school. Even before that time I became highly interested in American Sign Language and the Deaf Culture and wanted to know all I could about it. At the time I lived in a very small community where there was a family who had a deaf son. The whole community joined together and met in a church basement to learn how to communicate to this little boy. Young people and even the elderly desired to be able to communicate with him and make him feel normal despite his lack of hearing. All of my composition papers in college surrounded my passion for it. I immersed myself in it. So during my three semesters at the University I took beginning and intermediate classes in ASL. I loved it and thrived on it. My teachers and I communicated without problems and I became a member of their family. When I finally graduated I had this great beginning but my next step in order to complete this dream was to go and get further education. But Duluth didn't and still doesn't offer any Deaf ASL graduate or interpreter training. My only alternative at the time was to go to an all girls school in the Cities for three years. I was eighteen and I knew at the time I wasn't ready to leave home and venture off on my own. So I stayed behind and kept updated on as much as I could by taking community education classes by deaf instructors. Then I met my friend and everything changed. I didn't know it at the time but that is when I learned that she used another form of communicating with the world of the deaf then I had previously known of. During my education of Deaf history I was taught to believe that any form of communication other then ASL was unheard of even shunned. So to be apart of something that was so against my former way of thought was exciting! I had to learn. So we took a whole summer together (she is 26) and her and her parents sat me down and taught me. It was wonderful! Today I babysit a deaf girl who uses Cued Speech! It makes me so excited to know that I can have such a powerful impact on a community of individuals who are very misunderstood in my opinion. So that is my ASL and Cued Speech introduction! If you have any further questions just let me know. I would be happy to answer them!