Students can now learn sign language, but it doesn't fulfill the language requirement.

At Boston University and Northeastern, students can fulfill their schools' language requirements by studying American Sign Language. But not at Harvard.

In an opinion piece in the Crimson, Harvard's venerable student newspaper, freshman David Lynch argues this week that ASL needs to be recognized and taught as a bona fide language.

The university's position is that this recognition depends on a language having a "written component." 

"At its core," Lynch writes, "the purpose of language is communication and doubting a people’s language merely because one cannot 'write it' is fundamentally discriminatory. By instilling within students’ minds that ASL is a fun elective but not a legitimate language due to its failure to have a stereotypical 'written component,' Harvard is essentially claiming that those who use American Sign Language are not actually using language."

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At 2 months, she learns 'Grandma.'

Two-month-old baby Aria McMahon was visiting with her grandmother, Pamela McMahon, when they started practicing the word for “grandma” in sign language, Inside Edition reports.

Aria is completely deaf, and although she would ‘listen’ intently to signing, she hadn't used any signs herself.

Enter Grandma. With her help, Aria was able to practice moving her hand and signing the word herself.

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Police departments across the nation work to let blind kids join the fun.

It happened last week in California, Kansas, West Virginia, New Mexico and many other locations. Police bomb squads used their expertise to create Easter eggs that gave off a sound like a smoke alarm.

In Bakersfield, blind and visually impaired children got a chance to hunt for Easter eggs with a little help from the Bakersfield Police Department bomb squad, NBC News reported.

​More than 20 kids searched for the beeping eggs on Thursday, with officers serving as guides. The eggs were traded in for candy, popcorn and snow cones, and every child left with an Easter basket.
 
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Once an outsider, she has found her niche.

It wasn't until graduate school that Jane Fernandes first encountered sign language.

Born deaf, she has been taught to speak, to lip-read, and to "pass" in the hearing world, the News & Observer of Raleigh, NC, reports.

Now, as president of the small but prestigious Guilford College in Greensboro, NC, she is popular among the students and is navigating difficult economic times.

“People are frankly inspired by her,” says Ed Winslow, a Greensboro lawyer who is chair of the college's Board of Trustees.

Fernandes grew up as one of a number of deaf family members; her mother was deaf from birth, and her brother was hearing impaired.
Her mother taught her to read lips and speak, rather than taking her to be taught with other deaf children.

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Designation would be voluntary.

Legislators in Raleigh, NC, voted last week to approve a new system that would help law enforcement identify people who are deaf or hard of hearing, WRAL TV reports.

House Bill 84 would add a designation to a driver's license that the driver is deaf or hearing-impaired. The designation would also be added to the registration of any vehicle in that owner's name.

The identifier system would be completely voluntary. Deaf or hearing-impaired people would not be required to participate.

"This is to address concerns that many of us know about of people who've been injured, even killed, because someone did not realize they were hearing-impaired or actually deaf," explained Rep. Cynthia Ball, "so that the officer that stops that vehicle will have some advance information, perhaps, about the individual's impairment."

Ball was referring to an incident last year in which a deaf man was fatally shot by a state trooper in his own driveway after a short chase during which he failed to pull over as directed. ​

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