Who Gets Language? The Arbitrary Gatekeeping of ASL, Access, and Human Potential

What if I told you that we are locking kids out of language based on a number? That we're deciding who gets to communicate not based on their needs, but based on whether or not they fail a hearing test?

That’s what we’re doing every time we deny access to ASL because a child isn’t “Deaf enough.”

I met a 15-year-old who had no consistent access to expressive English until his teenage years. Before that, his speech was unreliable at best. People assumed he couldn’t understand, because he couldn’t respond in the way they expected. At fifteen, he finally learned Spell to Communicate, pointing to letters on a board, and everything changed. He started writing. Expressing thoughts that had been locked inside for years.

At one point, earlier in his life, he flushed two pairs of hearing aids. That wasn’t just behavior. That was protest. That was communication. That was a child, locked out of language, with no way to say “help me.”

Now? He’s writing books. Plural. He always had the mind. He just didn’t have the bridge.

What if he had been given access to ASL from the beginning? I don’t know if he was or wasn’t, but I know this. If we had offered ASL early, if we had presumed competence, maybe he wouldn’t have had to scream through actions. Maybe he could have just told us what he needed. Maybe the years of rage and misunderstanding could have been replaced with connection.

I think of my neighbor. She was born when I was three and a half. Her parents were told to institutionalize her. That she might not survive. That she would never walk. That she would never read. That she would never have language. But they refused to accept that.

She’s now in her 40s. She reads at a second- or third-grade level. She lives in a group home. She volunteers. She signs fluently. She participates in her world. She was never given a chance to learn to read the “normal” way, but through sign language and the support of people who saw her worth, she made her own way.

And still, here we are. In 2025. Pretending we can predict a child’s future from a behavioral hearing test or a developmental checklist. Pretending the audiogram can tell us whether someone deserves language.

It doesn’t.

We are turning children away from ASL programs, from Deaf schools, from immersive language environments, just because they can hear a beep at 25 dB. Even if they can’t process speech. Even if they can’t tolerate noise. Even if they already sign. Even if they’re non-speaking and visually oriented and begging, through their actions, for a different way to connect.

What happens to the child who fluctuates between 20 and 50 dB of hearing loss? Who has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and never developed a stable acoustic reflex? Who is overwhelmed in noisy rooms, shut down by sensory overload, and navigating a world where language often comes in too fast, too distorted, too painful to process?

Apparently, they’re not Deaf enough.

Talia is one of those kids. She signs. Not perfectly, because her school didn’t support it consistently. She uses it at home with her mother, a woman who has been signing fluently for many years. ASL is Talia's native language. She refuses AAC. She doesn’t speak aloud. She’s autistic, but neither of her parents fully buys the label. Not because they reject autism itself, but because they see how different Talia is when she’s signing. When she’s able to be understood. And on her bad hearing days, ASL is her easiest access to receptive language.

Talia was thriving at Deaf camp. No one questioned her there. But back home, her public school stuck her in a 4th-grade special ed class with kids who are either AAC users or verbal. The room is chaotic. The noise is constant. The curriculum is far below her potential. She’s surrounded by kids whose communication styles don’t match hers. She’s growing more frustrated, more isolated every year.

There’s both a Deaf/Hard of Hearing mainstream program as well as a residential/day Deaf school nearby. Both full ASL immersion programs. Her mom wants her there. But they won’t even consider it. Because she doesn’t “qualify.” Her audiogram is inconsistent. Her hearing fluctuates. Her speech is absent. But her signing isn’t perfect. So no one claims her.

Talia cannot be accepted in the Deaf world. But she doesn't fit in with the hearing world either. She is unable to participate in general education without an ASL interpreter, which the school occasionally provides. She doesn’t belong, period.

But the truth is, her language is more Deaf than hearing.

She already has a language. She already uses ASL. What she needs now is society, that is, immersion, support, and belief. What she doesn’t need is to be confined in a loud, dysregulated classroom, surrounded by people who can’t communicate with her, while professionals call it placement.

So let me ask the question directly:

Who has the right to language?

Who decides what counts as enough hearing loss, enough disability, enough delay?

Why do we assume speech must come first, when some children are never going to speak easily? Why do we restrict ASL to only those who "fail" a test, when it could be the most powerful tool for so many children across diagnoses, including APD, autism, dyslexia, apraxia, EDS, trauma, and sensory processing disorders?

I’m autistic. I’m ADHD. I’ve been signing since I was three years old. And when I’m in sensory overload, when I’m emotionally flooded, when my speech falters, I still turn to sign. It is visual. It is tactile. It slows things down. It gives me access when sound does not. I have friends who use AAC instead. It’s a personal preference. But the point is, we had the option to find what works.

Most kids don’t.

They never get the chance. And that’s what we need to change.

ASL is a language. Not a crutch. Not a last resort. Not a symbol of how impaired someone is. It’s a tool for communication, connection, expression, and dignity.

It should be the second language of this country. Not because everyone should be Deaf, but because everyone should have access.

I don’t just fight for this because of the kids I serve. I fight for it because of the little girl who lived across the street when I was three and a half. The one the doctors said wouldn’t survive, wouldn’t walk, wouldn’t read, wouldn’t speak. Her parents didn’t listen.

Instead, they taught the neighborhood kids to sign.

That girl changed my life. If it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t be here doing what I do. I wouldn’t be a fluent signer. I wouldn’t have spent years immersed in the Deaf community. I wouldn’t have studied at Gallaudet. I wouldn’t have taken ten years of ASL classes or built a career in supporting kids who fall through the cracks of spoken language.

Sign language has given me comfort, community, and education. It’s helped me process the world, especially as someone who is autistic, ADHD, and sensitive to sensory overload. It’s not just a communication tool. It’s a survival tool.

Yet, as a child, had I needed to learn via ASL, it would've been a closed door. Not an option, due to my hearing. Having had that opportunity as a grad student, I know the difference good visual language makes on academics.

And I also think about the kids with misophonia. The ones who can’t process certain sounds, not just because they’re annoying, but because those sounds hijack their nervous systems. The sniffing. The chewing. The pen clicking. These sounds don’t just distract. They shut everything down.

Wouldn’t it make perfect sense for those kids to have access to ASL too?

They’re not deaf, technically. But in those moments, they may as well be. They can’t function with spoken language. They need a visual alternative. They need an escape hatch. They need the option to slip into selective deafness, not as avoidance, but as protection. As regulation. As the thing that lets them stay in the room, stay connected, stay human. To avoid the pressing need to self-injure for nervous system regulation in response to triggering sounds.

ASL could do that.

It could be a lifeline for every child whose ears work fine, but whose brain just can’t make use of sound the way school expects them to. It could be the second language of the country. It could be the bridge we build instead of the gate we lock.

And for some of us, it already has been.

Without community, you’re just a language orphan. Without other signers, how are you supposed to practice? What is the purpose in learning ASL if you have no access to use it?

It’s the same reason I keep telling my daughter she’s better off learning Spanish than French. There’s nothing wrong with French. But we live in a neighborhood where everyone speaks Spanish. It makes more sense to learn the language of the community around you than to memorize one you’ll never get to use.

Language needs community. Access needs opportunity. And when we treat ASL as something reserved only for the culturally Deaf, we deny people the chance to grow.

It is unfair to teach someone a language and give them nowhere to speak it. And it is purist to say that only Deaf people should have access to ASL, except maybe at a hobby level.

And as I’ve said in a previous article, most hearing testing doesn’t even measure functional hearing. It tells us whether a child can detect a sound, not whether they can follow conversation, manage background noise, tolerate the sensory load, or stay regulated through speech. But we use those tests to make decisions about access to language and culture and support.

What if a child fatigues by listening but thrives by watching?

Shouldn’t that tell us everything we need to know?

Listening is not neutral for every child. For some, it drains them. It is labor. It is noise they cannot sort through. But when you give them visual input, something happens. They bloom. They engage. They find their voice, even if it is through their hands.

Language should not be a source of exhaustion. It should be the place you come home to.

If language is access, then community is oxygen. You can survive with one, but you will not live.

We have the tools to change this. We have the technology, the training, the funding models, and the need. What we lack is the willingness to say out loud what so many of us already know.

Every child deserves language.

Every child deserves a way in.

Let’s stop drawing the line at 70 decibels.

Let’s start drawing the line at dignity.

__________

Postscript: What I’ve Seen, and What Still Needs to Change

I’m 50 now. I was in K-12 until 1993, and I’ve now watched these patterns play out over decades.

Back when I was in school, it was the kids with cochlear implants or the Cued Speech users who struggled most with acceptance. Hard-of-hearing students were somewhat more accepted, but the lines were still clear. You were either “Deaf enough” or you weren’t. And if you weren’t, your presence in the community was conditional, fragile, always at risk of being revoked.

That has improved somewhat. But the definition of Deafness is still based almost entirely on peripheral hearing loss. Not central auditory disorders. Not processing. Not function. Just the numbers on an audiogram.

And so the children who function as “brain-deaf” because of severe auditory processing disorder, or the autistic children who use ASL fluently for expression but struggle to comprehend speech, are almost never granted that same access. They are rarely considered “hard of hearing,” even when their daily communication breakdowns mirror that experience exactly.

Instead, they are often accused of seeking attention. Or dismissed as too “needy.” It doesn’t matter if they are skilled signers. It doesn’t matter if ASL is the only language they can use to truly express themselves. If their hearing thresholds don’t qualify them as Deaf, they are rejected.

This leaves them isolated. Not just from hearing peers, but from the Deaf community too.

Without the opportunity for immersion and true fluency, without access to other signers outside the home or therapy room, they become language orphans. They plateau in their development. They can’t reach full fluency. And as a result, they can’t fully access learning.

Worse, they are often not given the language resources needed in the first place. So they may never develop full language competence at all. Not because they couldn’t. But because no one gave them the right tools.

Bilingualism is a gift. But partial bilingualism, when it’s mistaken for enough, can actually be a trap. It’s like being given half a dose of a medication that works, but then being told that’s all there is. And when that dose doesn’t take you far enough, you’re blamed for not getting better.

These kids deserve more.

They deserve full language access. They deserve qualified interpreters. They deserve to be in classrooms where they can actually understand and be understood. They deserve to be immersed in a language that matches their brain, not one imposed by a checklist.

I know resources are limited. But the more people we recognize as valid ASL users, the more need we create for interpreters, for Deaf educators, for ASL-accessible spaces. That means more jobs, not fewer. Growth, not depletion.

Gatekeeping doesn’t preserve resources. It just ensures they’re misallocated.

Can you imagine classrooms with children who have mixed types of hearing loss—peripheral, central, fluctuating? Some who can hear but cannot speak. Others who can speak but can’t tolerate sound. Some who live between both worlds. And all of them supported in the language they can actually access?

That’s the vision. That’s inclusion.

Bilingualism is a gift, but only when it comes with community. Without that, it becomes baby sign, or sign-supported English, or AAC with the illusion of fluency. It’s not ASL.

ASL is a living language. And like all living languages, it needs people. It needs hands to meet hands, eyes to meet eyes. It needs conversation, culture, belonging.

Without that, we are giving kids fragments and calling it enough.

And it’s not enough.

Interested in this topic? Read further here:

https://www.drraestout.com/blog/asl-didnt-failwe-failed-to-apply-it-with-the-commitment-it-deserves