from the H Street, NE Starbucks
“Dear PoPville,
My husband and I would like to learn American Sign Language (ASL) because he has an inherited degenerative hearing condition. While he can still hear alright, we see ourselves communicating with ASL later in life and we’d like to be competent enough that we can expose our (young) children to it too (since they’re likely to inherit the same condition and learning in childhood will give much greater fluency).
It seems like DC must be the perfect place to do this, given Gallaudet and the widespread deaf community, but it’s been difficult to figure out what resources exist and the best way to get started.
A few questions:
Does anyone have recommendations for specific DC programs for learning ASL for adults? Are there any children’s programs for children <5? And finally, given the 3-d nature of signs, do people think in-person instruction is strongly preferred to an online class, or is there no difference?"