Louis Laurent Marie Clerc, nicknamed "The Apostle of the Deaf in America," is recognized as one of the founding members of American Sign Language. If he had not come to the United States of America, ASL would have never existed and thus would never revolutionize deaf culture and deaf education in modern America today.
Born in France on December 26th 1782, Laurent Clerc was not originally deaf by birth. Clerc was born with the sense of hearing, but when he was one year old, he fell into a furnace.
The consequence of this accident, cost him both his hearing ability and his sense of smell. On top of this, part of his face was badly burned, and was scarred forever. However, in later years, the scars only made him more resolved. The scar…show more content… Yet for his students, he would tweak the sign language to mix the French style with the American style. This would eventually develop into American Sign Language (ASL) which would be used throughout America’s school system to aid the deaf population.
Clerc would continue his teaching profession until retirement in 1858 at 73 years of age. According to New York Times’ OBITUARY.; Laurent Clerc, the Instructor of Deaf Mutes, on July 18th, 1869, Laurent Clerc would pass away at 83 years of age.
Despite Clerc's passing, his teachings would continue to be taught through future generation of education and into modern deaf culture. His legacy resulted in a huge difference in the life of a sector of the population that did not have the means of communicating their needs. It is interesting like in the case of Laurent Clerc that ASL was taught to him out of his need to communicate, something extraordinary happened with the case of deaf children in Nicaragua during the 1980s.
According to YouTube video The Birth of New Sign Language in Nicaragua, before the Nicaraguan Revolution of 1979, this sector of the population did not have any form of communication thus making their extremely difficult. After the revolution, many volunteers poured into the country, helping to develop the new society. With these volunteers, a group of ASL professors came with the idea to help the deaf
