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Date:         Fri, 17 Apr 1992 15:37:50 EDT
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From:         Bill McGarry <wtm@sheldev.shel.isc-br.com>
Subject:      Handicap Digest # 2589
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                          THE HANDICAP DIGEST

                               Issue # 2589

                           Friday, April 17, 1992

Today's Topics:


                                ******


                               EHRLER'S DANLOS
                                W/C Bathrooms
                                 Unix stuff
                              Re: Deaf Culture
                              Re: Deaf Culture
                      Re: ASL as a Structured Language
                              Re: ASL & English
                                Born victims
                          Re: phantom pain research
                          Re: Phantom pain research


                                ******


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Subject: EHRLER'S DANLOS
From: Silverbow@f11.n203.z1.fidonet.org (Silverbow)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:203/11 - The Broken Rose BBS, Sacramento CA


Is there anyone out there that has this connective/muscle/tissue disorder?
If so, talk to me and let me know how your life is going.  I have this disorder
 along with the messed up heart valve that normally one is born
with.

--
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Internet: Silverbow@f11.n203.z1.fidonet.org




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Subject: W/C Bathrooms
From: John.Nagle@f4.n382.z1.fidonet.org (John Nagle)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:382/4 - River City MailBox, Austin TX


A while back someone was asking about modifing their bathroom,
I don't remember who so I'll past this to all.

There is a publication avilable(single copies are free)
    to reguest a copy write:

     Paralyzed Veterans of America
     801 18th street Northwest
     Washington, DC 20006

Ask  for a copy of "Wheelchair in the Bathroom"
they also have     "wheelchair in the Kitchen"

Later, JOHN

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Subject: Unix stuff
From: Steve.Matzura@f203.n2603.z1.fidonet.org (Steve Matzura)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:2603/203 - The Shop Mail Only, Flushing NY


 > eriously, do you find that speech works as well with unix as with dos
 > or maybe even better?

First off, there ain't no such thing as speech with Unix--not on
the same computer, anyway.  You need another second computer to
access the first through a serial port.   This is because in the
Unix operating system, everything--your terminal, every device on
the system including disks, everything--is controlled, each and
every time you begin or end a dialogue with that device, by a
separate "process", which goes away after you "close" the device,
and a new one is created every time you begin a dialogue or "open"
a device.  This means that, for all intents and purposes, speech
boards generally don't work well with Unix, even if somebody writes
a custom device driver for the board, which has been done with very
limited success.

If you want to access a Unix system like you access your DOS
system, you take your DOS system over to the Unix system (either
physically or electronically by dialing it up on a telephone line
just like you would a BBS) and log in using a terminal program like
ProComm, Telix, etc.

You see, the reason we have what we have with our speechware is
because in a DOS environment you can control everything from the
same "process" because in DOS there is only one process and it does
and knows all.  In Unix, everything is farmed out to different
processes which come and go as they are needed.  That's why Unix is
a true multi-processing operating system, not just a task-swapper
like DOS or a time-slicer like OS/2 or Desqview.  It's a whole
'nother world, with different (and, I must tell you, rather
cryptic) terse two- or three-letter commands that, frankly, when I
first got involved in it, sounded like another language!  Now that
I've been using it for about eight or nine years, it's almost
second nature and I catch myself going to DOS systems and saying
"Gee, where's lex and yak and sed and vi, and what happened to my
wild-carding, and where's mv, and why doesn't DOS's batch language
have better if-then syntax?  OH YEAH!!!  This ain't Unix here!!!"

Steve Matzura

Via: FrontDoor 2.02

--
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Internet: Steve.Matzura@f203.n2603.z1.fidonet.org




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Subject: Re: Deaf Culture
From: hayes@anaconda.cis.ohio-state.edu (Patrick Hayes)
Organization: Ohio State Computer Science

In article <21047@handicap.news> Wayne.Silsbee@p1.f222.n105.z1.fidonet.org
(Wayne Silsbee) writes:

   Okay. I'll accept this analysis. It *looks* unstructured. From my
   original argument, this changes nothing. It still *causes* the
   shortening and "de-structuralizing" of English when English is
   signed.

Uh, well at least _signed_ English. But this grammatical shift is a
function of the modality and I don't know how you're going to prevent
a grammatical shift in an MCE - maybe one of those dog collars with
with the radio controlled electric shocker. You can poke the student
every time he/she lets one of those insidious spatial grammatical
constructs sneak into his/her signed English :)

Now, when talking about _written_ English: I interviewed a woman who
taught deaf high school students last November for a paper I was
writing for a class. She switched from using Signed English to ASL in
class a few years ago. She's now keeping the instruction in English
entirely written (as opposed to using MCE) and said that she's getting
much better results. She said that by not enforcing an English syntax
in signing, the students are more creative, and when she says "OK,
that's a good idea. Now how would you write it on the blackboard?" the
students view more like a game and less like drudgery.

And for a brief plug on my idea of how to English to deaf students -
give them Internet access. It's the only place I can think of where
they can experience real-time social interaction in English and be
able to receive and transmit the full signal, and with no disadvantage
compared to the hearing. My guess is that it would be a big help for
spelling, grammar, and vocabulary.

Just an idea.

---PCH




------



Subject: Re: Deaf Culture
From: hayes@anaconda.cis.ohio-state.edu (Patrick Hayes)
Organization: Ohio State Computer Science
Comments: Hyperbole mail buttons accepted, v3.0P.

In article <21047@handicap.news> Wayne.Silsbee@p1.f222.n105.z1.fidonet.org
(Wayne Silsbee) writes:

   Okay. I'll accept this analysis. It *looks* unstructured. From my
   original argument, this changes nothing. It still *causes* the
   shortening and "de-structuralizing" of English when English is
   signed.

Uh, well at least _signed_ English. But this grammatical shift is a
function of the modality and I don't know how you're going to prevent
a grammatical shift in an MCE - maybe one of those dog collars with
with the radio controlled electric shocker. You can poke the student
every time he/she lets one of those insidious spatial grammatical
constructs sneak into his/her signed English :)

Now, when talking about _written_ English: I interviewed a woman who
taught deaf high school students last November for a paper I was
writing for a class. She switched from using Signed English to ASL in
class a few years ago. She's now keeping the instruction in English
entirely written (as opposed to using MCE) and said that she's getting
much better results. She said that by not enforcing an English syntax
in signing, the students are more creative, and when she says "OK,
that's a good idea. Now how would you write it on the blackboard?" the
students view more like a game and less like drudgery.

And for a brief plug on my idea of how to English to deaf students -
give them Internet access. It's the only place I can think of where
they can experience real-time social interaction in English and be
able to receive and transmit the full signal, and with no disadvantage
compared to the hearing. My guess is that it would be a big help for
spelling, grammar, and vocabulary.

Just an idea.

---PCH




------



Subject: Re: ASL as a Structured Language
From: hayes@anaconda.cis.ohio-state.edu (Patrick Hayes)
Organization: Ohio State Computer Science

In article <21042@handicap.news> James.Womack@f71.n382.z1.fidonet.org
(James Womack) writes:


   Pat, your post to Wayne S. is good. I'd like to know more about
   your work with ASL.

Er, me? No work with ASL. Grad student in Computer & Information Science/
Artificial Intelligence.

   Your post was great. i only wish you could have expanded n on it a
   bit. I hope you share more reserach info on this area.

Heh, and I thought I was rambling (no sleep) :)

For some good works on the subject, look up Ursula Bellugi's research.
Her work on the grammatical structure of ASL is very interesting. Her
original approach is particularly interesting - she got into the
subject trying to tease out biological bases of language from a
comparison of manual and verbal language. Thinking ASL to be
non-grammatical, she was interested in how much information could be
conveyed without grammar. She was surprised when taking a close look
at the language that it was grammatical. Good stuff.

A good book on education is Bornstein's "Manual Communication:
Implications for Education." Bornstein was one of the developers of
Signed English. Correctly stresses the extreme need for exposure to
language for children as early as possible (there's a period during
childhood during which a person must learn language. If he doesn't
learn language during this time period, he'll never be able to learn a
large number of linguistic constructs, like the passive). His defense
of Signed English is interesting. He admits its weaknesses and states
that it was developed for ease of learning for parents of deaf
children. Most parents of deaf children never learn sign language
(something horrifying like 80% or higher), and that Signed English was
therefore aimed at the hearing. Anyway, the book covers a lot more
than Signed English and is very good.

The above mentioned comment on age and language acquisition is the
primary problem I have with the Oralists (to wander to another subject.
I feel like Rosanna Rosanna Danna today). Little kids no matter how
much you try to force them (I think Ann a while back said something
about kids always taking the easy way out) simply aren't going to pick
up the entire signal if its verbal. This will give them an impoverished
linguistic background which will alter the course of the physical,
neurological development of the brain, forever robbing them of the
hardware for complete language skills.

Just something else fun to think about :(

---PCH




------



Subject: Re: ASL & English
From: hayes@anaconda.cis.ohio-state.edu (Patrick Hayes)
Organization: Ohio State Computer Science

In article <21065@handicap.news> Wayne.Silsbee@p1.f222.n105.z1.fidonet.org
(Wayne Silsbee) writes:

God I'm prolific tonight.

   Why is it an insult? Are we thinking of two different things when
   we talk about "structure" of a language? Kimberly and Patrick have
   both jumped on me for this view, and now I have to deal with you...
   :)

We're of the Secret ASL Cabal. The attacks were preplanned and our
knives presharpened :O

   Ok, here's an example of what I mean by "unstructured".
   ...
   Descripition of a conversation in ASL about fat women in bikinis
   which included non-lexical elements.
   ....
   Are visual "pictures" no more a part of ASL than hand motions are
   to English, and the language is actually quite rigid
   ("structured"), or does ASL allow these deviations from its
   confines to make ideas easier to describe?

These two really aren't at odds with each other. I'm not really
teasing out of your description how much of the fat woman in a bikini
was classifiers and how much pantomime. There are definite cues to
indicate which mode one is in - pantomime doesn't follow the phonetic
and morphemic structures of ASL. My guess: In a spoken language you
can in parallel present both a verbal signal and a pantomime signal
which can't be done in a manual language. This would be like making
animal noises in a conversation. Moreover, I would guess that there is
a greater deal of visual annotations as compared to auditory ones
which one would wish to add to a conversation because of the extreme
role vision plays in the human cognitive processes, thus increasing
the ratio of interruptions in an ASL signal vis-a-vis an English one.

But I also think that it's quite likely that pantomime is sometimes
employed because it can give a concise representation of a stituation.
I know my English is punctuated by arm-waving, grunts, snorts and other
rude noises.

   See, I knew we had a
   definition problem here. Shall we call a truce?

And what are we to do with our honed knives? :)

---PCH




------



Subject: Born victims
From: jagnow@al.weeg.uiowa.edu (Al Jagnow)


Just a thought:

I have some handicapped friends who are continually being robbed,
cheated, or taken advantage of in other ways.  It's almost as
though there were wearing a sign theat says "Victim - Please take
advantage of me."  It seems to be a result of their self-image and
their asseriveness - the image that they project to other people.
Other handicapped people never seem to have these problems.

This seems to be a problem with some 'normal people'  - not just
with 'handicapped'.

Does anyone have suggestions for helping people who seem to be
'born victims'?  Or has anyone else noticed this phenomena?





------



Subject: Re: phantom pain research
From: Bill.Baughn@f20.n112.z1.fidonet.org (Bill Baughn)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:112/20 - Medical Information, Jacksonville Fl


[This is from the Amputee Conference]

CB>that would be conjecture, too, yes? [grin]

Of course it is.  But it is presented as such.  When scientist base
articles on their guesses I suggest that my guess is just as valid
as theirs.  In fact it's probably better since I come into contact
with a larger and more varied group of amputees than they do.

CB>> My wife Joyce, lost her hands when she was almost
  >> seven years old.  She has never experienced phantom pain or sensation.

CB>is that usual or unusual?

My experience with amputees who lost their limb/s before age six
says that they never experience phantom pain or sensation.  The
medical literature reports that it does happen but is extremely
rare.

CB>science is merely knowledge.

~No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted
without proof.~ ~Henry David Thoreau

CB> BTW, i've got this uncontrollable yen [no
  >pun intended] for Yatka Mein. do you think you could do
  >anything about it, Dr.? [wider grin]

Try two beef burittos for breakfast every day for six months then
call me in the morning.}:->

Bill B

 * SLMR 2.1a * A conclusion is a place where you got tired of thinking.

--
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Internet: Bill.Baughn@f20.n112.z1.fidonet.org




------



Subject: Re: Phantom pain research
From: Christopher.Baker@f14.n374.z1.fidonet.org (Christopher Baker)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:374/14 - Rights On!, Titusville FL


[This is from the Amputee Conference]

> said it offered new research. I am sorry but to me, an amputee, it offers
> nothing that I have not read before. As for research, the

i'd not heard it before. no one i've ever asked has ever alluded to it before.

> on 10 or 12 amputees. To you and others it is  neurological and
> psychological. To me and others it is environmental and physical.

all are factors. i was merely asserting that the basis for all pain
is the brain since it is the interpreter and the source of
analysis. i was being literal. i don't discount the physical
factors but they are not the end of the story. [grin]

> the truce. I have my opinions, you have yours, and Dr. Melzack has his.
> Thanks for the interesting conversation.

okay.

TTFN.
Chris

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             End of Issue # 2589 of the Handicap Digest

                                ******
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