1. Sign Language is just one of several communication methods available to deaf people.
2. Deaf adults themselves should teach Sign Language.
3. Did you know that Sign Languages differ between countries and regions just as spoken languages do?
4. ASL (American Sign Language) is recognised as a foreign language for credit in 35 states.
5. Not everyone can read lips, even the best lip-readers can only pick up 30-40% of words.
6. 16% of the Australian population have a hearing loss of more than 25 decibels (mild hearing loss). This equates to over three million Australians.
7. Fingerspelling is used to represent English words and can be used in conjunction with Auslan (Australian Sign Language).
8. Deaf people are rarely unhappy about being deaf, though they may feel frustrated by discrimination and obstruction in certain areas of society.
9. Auslan was not invented by any single person, hearing or deaf.
10. There is not a one-to-one relationship between Sign Language and English. One sign may be translated into English by more than one word (perhaps a phrase or sentence). Likewise an English word may be represented by more than one sign.
