And she comes up to me and she grabs onto my hand and I'm like,
"Now what?" and her friend goes, "Just sign."
There's a couple tactile sign languages they're asking about how to communicate with deafblind
oh and you actually have a little bit more experience with that than than I do but there are
like Pro-tactile ASL and then there's tactile sign languages and both of them you're signing
into the other person's hand um one is that like one basic one is like you're um kind of drawing
letters in the palm of their hand and they can you know feel what letters you're drawing a more um
efficient way of communicating is pro tactile ASL and if you YouTube it there's a there's a
few great videos that kind of go over what it is how it's used and why it can be really
efficient for deaf blind people basically it's um a simplified version of uh sign language that you
sign into somebody's hand so then they are able to be cognizant of the space that you're using they
can kind of feel the hand shapes that you're using and it's actually a really effective way to make
that communication happen when they can't read they can't you know visually see the sign language
and everything like that go ahead I have a couple stories about that so quite a few years back
um I me and Chris we were um uh we were out of town and he gave a discourse in sign language
and so we're sitting there afterwards and we're just chatting with with people new people like
we didn't know and this woman approaches me and she says hi um i have somebody here who
wants to meet you and I'm like okay cool she was hearing but the person she was bringing over was
deaf I was like cool yeah absolutely let's go and she said she's deaf and blind and I went oh
that's still cool let's go and I thought oh how do I do it how do I do it because i had no experience
with it so she tells me all you have to do is let her hold on to your hand and I'm like pardon
and she goes just let her hold on to your hand I'm like oh okay yeah let's do it so she comes
up to me and she's older and she comes up to me and she grabs onto my hand and I'm like now what
and her friend goes just sign and I'm like well I can't be right and she's like no it's okay
just she will do what she's gonna do just sign and I'm like oh my goodness I'm like okay so I
introduced myself and I was like okay i said hi my name is Johnni my sign and she's holding on to
my hands ever so lightly and she just feels what I'm doing and as I'm doing everything
and she was like it's nice so she wouldn't let go of my hand she would sign one-handed and she
was like it's nice to meet you and I'm like oh absolutely and then as I would sign she would hold
onto my hand again and it was a very interesting experience for me because I had no idea
and her friend knew I was nervous and she was like don't be nervous it's totally fine and I'm like
because I don't want to offend somebody I don't want to do something wrong you know I had no
experience with this so it was fascinating to me i was like wow and I know some interpreters
I'm friends with them they do that professionally I'm an interpreter but I'm not a tactile
interpreter that's a whole other skill and so I've watched them do it and I'm like I'm like wow that
is like amazing to do i have a friend how did you clarify Johnni were you actually doing signs or
were you just finger spelling no never I was doing signs and she was feeling my hands as i did it
um i have a friend who's deaf and he's going blind he he has tunnel vision and as he's gotten older
it's gotten worse so now he sees this and he's deaf so what he does is he kind of does the same
thing but he has to hold on to my hand to find me first so he's looking to find in this very
narrow spot to find me and then I sign pretty close to my hand or pretty close to my face
so he can see me so he doesn't let go because otherwise he'll lose me and then I'm gone
and so it it's interesting there's ways of doing it and there's ways of communicating with
with um the deaf and blind I've never had to do the one in the hand where you fingerspell in
their hand I've never done that but my boss has and so it's just it's amazing to see that there
there is no limits you can communicate with anybody and it's just so fascinating but yeah
yeah and that's been my experience too is with that one with the tunnel vision and like your
box if you ever if you've been learning for a while you're kind of familiar with like I'm
signing loudly I'm signing quietly and like you have this range in this kind of invisible box
that you sign in and for him it's like your box is right here because his vision is just so limited
and so you have your hands really close to your face like this and you're you're signing a very
modified and so like the way you would communicate with and this kind of applies to everyone to where
your communication is a little dependent and you have to kind of change and adapt to who you're
speaking with and you know somebody might have clear vision and they speak you know really clear
ASL some people might be more PSE some people might know from older generations might still
use signed exact English and then you have those that are deaf-blind some know tactile pro-tactile
some do fingerspelling and so there's this huge variety within the deaf community and it can be um
not to be overwhelming but just to know that like there's a lot of beauty in that kind of variation
and um to not to kind of open our mindset a little bit and to know that sometimes there's many
ways to sign the same thing and sometimes that depends on who you're trying to communicate with.
you