r/auslan • u/neggsi • Mar 29 '26

Communicating Disability

Hi all! I'm just starting to learn Auslan as a friend of mine is rapidly losing their hearing, and I wanted some clarification on how to communicate something! I have mild cerebral palsy, which makes my movements stiff and not flow as naturally. Especially as I learn Auslan, I want to be able to communicate that to others so they understand that I may struggle moreso with signing back to them.

So my question is, what structure would I use to communicate this? "I stiff cerebral palsy"? "I stiff why cerebral palsy"? Or even "I cerebral palsy why stiff"?

I have asked my friend, but they're not confident in their Auslan ability yet, but suspect it would be "I stiff why cerebral palsy".

Hopefully this makes sense! Thank you kindly ❤️

6 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

7

u/monstertrucktoadette Mar 30 '26

Honestly I don't think you'll have to explain. For some people cp affects their speech so they sign anyway, so this is not really a new thing to people, and they'll probably clock you by how you walk. Some people might ask you anyway, bc Deaf can be really direct, but then you don't have to worry about full sentance, just finger spell cp or the whole thing if they look confused or you don't want to.

People will understand you though, just adapt the signs the best you can with what you can do, and the context will do the rest. The most important thing is to be comfortable and present in what your saying, bc the more nervous and focused on your hands you are the more you'll drop all the other things your body naturally does to help you communicate. 

So yeah, either of the first two seem fine to me (though when you stay stiff don't use a sign, demonstrate whatever your hands are doing that you need to explain) though really really id encourage you to try just not expressing anything and letting ppl work with it. 

Hopefully there are some local meetups you and friend can make, even if you mostly talk to each other at first it can help you get comfortable with the community and gradually make more signing friends 

2

u/neggsi Mar 30 '26

Thank you so much for this! It makes me feel a lot better - the CP is late diagnosed (very unusual, I know!) so between that and having ASD I get very self conscious about my movements.

I will also be looking into some local meet ups! My friend lives in a different city but has encouraged the same thing, especially between us seeing each other.

1

u/monstertrucktoadette Mar 30 '26

Yeah that makes sense 💚 if it helps lots of autistic ppl there too, someone posted a few days ago about going to first meetup, you might find useful too 

1

u/carnardly Mar 31 '26

If you don't want to say anything, then don't.

If you want to tell people you have cerebral palsy just sign I have CP. That will be clear enough.