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Sunday, 31 January 2010 |
 Emily LeCompte didn't learn sign language until she was 10 years old.
"I was born deaf, but I learned how to talk," she said.
With the assistance of hearing aids, which she has worn since the age of 3 months, LeCompte can hear the spoken word, although her hearing loss is classified as being between severe and profound.
"I was in a school in New Orleans for hearing impaired children, and they concentrate on language and teaching deaf children how to talk," she said.
But there have been times in her life when knowing sign language was beneficial. Based on her own experience, LeCompte has begun classes that teach the basics of sign language to people in the community.
Myrtis Darbonne, a medical technician, is taking LeCompte's sign-language class to help her communicate with some of her patients.
Cheryl Ortego, deputy clerk in Opelousas City Court, also is learning the basics of sign language.
"I signed up to learn sign language to help, just in case a situation arises where they would need assistance," she said.
While LeCompte gets along well in the hearing world, she became aware at a fairly young age that there are others who do not. She decided to become more proficient at signing.
"I'm from New Orleans, and there's a huge deaf population in the college I attended," she said. "A lot of my friends were deaf, and I began taking sign-language courses in college because I wanted to learn more."
Louisiana has a relatively high deaf population, she added.
After moving to Opelousas, LeCompte's proficiency increased even more. She worked in a St. Landry Parish elementary school in a deaf education program.
LeCompte has begun teaching her second sign-language course. The first was a five-week course that not only taught sign language, but also included information on deaf culture. The second course will be eight weeks and will concentrate mostly on signing.
The course is a mixture of American Sign Language, which is a language in and of itself with its own syntax, and signed exact English, which follows the grammatical rules of spoken English.
LeCompte has witnessed first-hand the almost inadvertent discrimination deaf people sometimes suffer, and she said she wants to help to bridge the gap.
"As someone who is deaf, I'm lucky enough to have one foot in the deaf world and one foot in the hearing world," she said. "I sympathize with both sides."
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