Coaching for the deaf and hard of hearing

⭐️ Patholinguistics sounds like a fascinating subject! What does it mean exactly?

Patholinguistics is a sub-discipline of linguistics that covers the entire field of speech, voice, and language disorders – both in children and adults. It’s a really interesting field that includes areas such as neurology, psychology and education. Through my studies, I then also became aware of sign language and quickly knew that I want to dive deeper into that. 

⭐️ How does German Sign Language work?

Unlike spoken language, DGS is a visual-manual language system with its own grammar. In addition to hand signs, important elements of communication also include facial expressions, mouthing, nodding and leaning. 

⭐️ What is special about coaching in German Sign Language?

As coaching in DGS is mainly on a visual basis, eye contact is really important of course. With online coaching sessions, this could mean that documents cannot be shared and discussed so easily. In addition, communication is interrupted when the image on the screen is “frozen”.

⭐️ When you talk about your work, which question are you asked most often?

“Is Sign Language international?” The answer is no! As with the spoken language, it is not universal – there are different sign languages from country to country as well as a variety of dialects within individual countries. Nevertheless, communication on an international level works well! This is due to similar visual elements in the languages. For international communication among themselves, deaf people use the International Sign Language as it has a simplified lexicon.