Marketplace links to a Reuters story on a group of deaf children in Nicaragua who have invented their own sign language.
The living laboratory of up to 1,000 children at a school in Managua was made possible because of the neglect of deaf people before the 1970s, a time of political and social turmoil in Nicaragua.
Deaf children were isolated and almost never learned formal sign language, [Ann] Senghas and her international team of collaborators said.
“They didn’t let them go out and socialize. You meet deaf people who are 50 and they really can’t communicate,” Senghas said.
But in 1977, a school for special education opened in Managua, followed four years later by a vocational school. For the first time, deaf children could meet and learn together, and could stay together as they grew up.