hearing difficulties and communication 11
Coming together for deaf rights
Thanks to the Nicaraguan people’s struggle to make education
available to all, many young deaf people were brought
together in schools for the first time. In one generation,
the children began to produce a new and different form of
communication — which developed into Nicaraguan Sign
Language.
By the mid-1980s, these young deaf adults began meeting
and working to promote their rights as deaf people. They
formed the National Association of the Deaf of Nicaragua
(ANSNIC). The people of ANSNIC helped to develop and
promote Nicaraguan Sign Language, publishing a dictionary
as well as a book for children. They worked with the Ministry
of Education to begin to include signing in the deaf schools,
and to improve the programs for deaf education.
Today, ANSNIC is a powerful group in Nicaragua that works
for the rights of deaf people and also serves as a social center
for its members.
Helping Children Who Are Deaf (2004)