Sarah Playforth: Will Strictly Come Dancing lead to a permanent shift in views towards BSL?

I’ve been watching, and loving, along with many, the performance of Rose Ayling-Ellis, who has taught her professional partner, Giovanni Pernici, enough British Sign Language (BSL) to communicate with her effectively so he can reveal and enhance her fantastic dancing ability.

A few days ago, I saw this comment on Facebook (thank you, Sue MacLaine):

“Lots of commenting on Rose and Giovanni on Strictly using the word inclusive. Praising Giovanni for how he includes Rose but rarely about how the inclusivity comes from Rose providing Giovanni with privileged inclusion into the language and culture of the Deaf community.”

That incisive comment reminded me of something I wrote a few years ago about two events highlighting the importance of BSL.

In 2018 The Silent Child won the Oscar for best short live film. For hearing people, the message was stark. Deny sign to children who are born deaf (or become deaf before acquiring speech) and you deny their rights – to language and to their place in family life.

For many deaf people, The Silent Child illustrated the isolation they felt growing up, often leading to frustration, depression and despair. Some had flashbacks, bad dreams and experienced the surfacing of agonising memories.

On the same day deaf people were celebrating the film’s Oscar award, a debate was being held in Parliament on the inclusion of British Sign Language in the national curriculum, following a petition. The minister’s response was disappointingly negative and the debate was held in Westminster Hall, not the House of Commons.

That reminded me of something someone said on twitter about The Silent Child – that the topic was ‘niche’. Pretty dismissive comment, I thought, and I replied to the tweet, politely challenging that term.

Since then, more efforts have been made to get BSL on to the national curriculum and to keep its importance on society’s agenda, but the failure to provide BSL interpreters on stage for the Covid briefings and other news in England show just how little attention is given by our government to the need to be inclusive. It probably is ‘niche’ to them.

Many efforts are (and have historically been) made to ‘fix’ deaf children so they can hear and speak. Little attention is paid to the effects on a child of this ‘fixing’.

Imagine spending weeks, months, years being taught to lipread, to hear with aids and to say, for example, the word ‘apple’. Does that enable the deaf child to know what an apple is; where it comes from; that there are different varieties of the fruit; to understand the part an apple plays in the story of Snow White?

Not having access to sign language means educational achievement is skewed from day one. How about the psychological and social effects?

Hearing people in the majority of situations begin chatting to their babies the moment they are born. There are brilliant hearing parents and guardians who make every effort to give their deaf baby visual information as well, and some learn sign too.

This gives the child every opportunity to find friends they can communicate with and to feel included by their own family.

Too many, however, influenced by medical professionals; by their families; by their own fear of being isolated from their child; by the mistaken conviction that speech and hearing is the holy grail, seek only audio and surgical solutions.

To me it seems perverse to do this, when the brain of a baby and young child can absorb so much from visual input, whether deaf or not. Baby sign classes are very popular; makaton (a sign system, not a language) can be seen on popular children’s television. Yet sign is too often discouraged for the very people who need it as their first language.

Growing up, finding your own identity and place in the world is tough enough without having to struggle to lipread all the time. Whether or not you have hearing aids or cochlear implants (not a miracle solution, it’s best seen as a new type of hearing aid) having other means to communicate is essential for so many reasons and can make life less stressful and less exhausting.

This isn’t a polemic, nor is it anti hearing aids, implants, radio aids, induction loops, alerting devices, captions, lip reading classes or hearing dogs. Those are all here to stay, and benefit many people. It’s just a fervent wish that all these things weren’t seen as reasons not to have sign language too.

Will the surge of interest in BSL survive after this series of Strictly Come Dancing is long gone? Will the efforts of many – notably Daniel Jillings – result in the much needed BSL GCSE?

I fervently hope so, but, while there has been undoubted progress since my 1950s tearful childhood experiences of being told to LISTEN, I’m not holding my breath.

Photo credit: Stephen Iliffe for Deaf Mosaic

Sarah writes: “I became profoundly deaf in 1953, at the age of two, from a heavy dose of streptomycin to treat life threatening encephalitis. I use lipreading, listening, speech, British Sign Language and English text to communicate. My career was in public librarianship, followed by several years self employed in the field of deaf, disability and diversity equality and as a member of employment and disability tribunals. I had hoped to continue working for many more years, but was forced to retire sooner than I wanted, due to cancer and its treatment. Now, thanks to the magnificent NHS, I’m in remission, and working on my memoirs.”