Linda Bove, a member of the deaf community, made her first appearance on Sesame Street in 1971, with the National Theater of the Deaf, and was made a permanent member of the cast in 1975. I would not be born until several years later, but this was where my interest in sign language began. Linda would sign and Bob would interpret and I would look on in awe of a language that was a little like a dance. My parents bought me a sign language alphabet book when I was about five years old, and of course, Linda was on the cover. Not long after, I could recite the entire alphabet by hand and had also learned a few simple words like cat and queen.

In middle school, my interest in sign language grew as I made a friend one summer during a camping trip whose brother was deaf. She would interpret for him and she told me a bit about deaf culture, like how people got their name signs. But I was kind of sad because I did not know any deaf people at home that could teach me more of this amazing language and there were no places I knew of to learn it.

In high school, I took French, because it was one of only two languages offered, but it was very difficult because I have an Auditory Processing Disorder co-current to my ADHD which can make understanding spoken words difficult. Spanish was no easier. In college, I started out learning Mandarin because I had recently been to China and thought it might be fun to learn the language, but this proved even more difficult, as it had no Latin, Germanic, or Greek roots, so there was nothing even familiar about it. Then I found out my college offered American Sign Language. I was excited not only because of my prior interest in the language but also because, since it is a visual language, I felt I would likely have an easier time picking it up.

This turned out to be true, although to sign with a person who was fluent in sign language was difficult at times because although I learned to do the signs myself very well, it was difficult for me to understand unless someone was signing back very slow. But I learned enough sign language to have a basic conversation, even if people had to repeat themselves a couple of times.

And then I met Homer one day on the bus ride home. Homer, much like his name implies, was blind, and before attending college, he went to a school for the blind and deaf. He told me that the deaf students used to teach him sign language by signing into his hand. He showed me some of the signs he knew and asked me if they were correct. Which made me think…

If a blind person can learn sign language in order to communicate with the deaf community, why aren’t more of us learning? As a person who has been to a deaf community event and can tell you that it feels somewhat isolating to not understand sign language very well and not have anyone that is speaking your language, and also to have been an American in Germany for the better part of two years and have difficulty finding someone who speaks English fluently enough to understand me, I can tell you that the opposite is also true. It can be so isolating to only have a handful of people you can speak to because so few know sign language. Sometimes only your family members. And no one seems to be doing anything about it. And if you believe that the only reason to learn sign language is to speak to the deaf community and there “aren’t enough of them to have to do that in your lifetime,” let me tell you of some other benefits that it has had for me.

Part of my anxiety disorder involves selective mutism. Sometimes when I have an anxiety attack, it feels like my mouth won’t let me speak. But I can still sign. And to have a husband that also knows at least as much sign language as I do has been really helpful to me during these times when I feel like Keanu Reeves in that part of The Matrix where he doesn’t have a mouth. Because we can still communicate. Furthermore, there have been times when he and I have been across a crowded room from one another and not been able to talk to each other, let alone, be able to hear over the volume of the crowd around us. Knowing enough sign language to be able to ask a simple question like “Do you want the orange or the blue one?” has been really helpful in those times because we don’t waste a lot of time going back and forth, trying to find our way from one side of the crowd to the other.

Also, you’ve probably heard of baby sign language. All three of my kids used baby signs when they were small. The one that still is has no other expressive language except to sign. She is almost 15 months old and has not learned any verbal language yet at all, except for the occasional “mama” and whispered “hi.” I speak to her in sign language whenever I can because I’m hoping that will help her with her expressive language skills. So she hears a lot of “Mama loves you.” “You’re so beautiful.” and “Do you want water or milk?” But she also SEES it, and that will be good for her language development.

The other thing it has been good for was while I worked as a Behavior Analyst. Not all the kids in the program are verbal. It opened me up to be able to work with kids I would not have been able to work with otherwise because they may have had difficulty with both receptive and expressive language, despite that their hearing had likely been checked and found to be normal.

And in addition to more people learning sign language, it would be cool if we could have more movies with closed captioning. I guess a lot of people don’t like that, but to be honest, aside from helping the deaf community to understand what is going on in a film, since they can’t always rely on their lip-reading skills (I mean you’ve seen Bad Lip Reading on YouTube, right?) it would also be helpful to people like me who have an auditory processing issue and would appreciate the subtitles so that I could get a better understanding of what is actually happening.

There is probably a multitude of other reasons why you should learn sign language and advocate for additional closed captioning that I have not thought of, or maybe forgot to include and will be hitting myself later on when I remember, but the fundamental reason is this: deaf people should be included in as many things as possible, for they are also citizens of your community and deserve to be lent a hand. Literally.