The Laker/Lutz News

Serving Pasco since 1981/Serving Lutz since 1964

Helping families communicate through sign language

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Families came to the New River Branch Library, at 34043 State Road 54 in Wesley Chapel, to learn how to communicate with hearing impaired loved ones.

The library will be hosting two classes each month, one for families and one for adults.

at the New River Branch Library. Gabriela Southwick, an American Sign Language instructor who resides in Zephyrhills, teaches the class.

Southwick holds a degree in communication sciences and disorders from the University of South Florida. She’s an American Sign Language teacher at Sunlake High School in Land O’ Lakes.

She said that American Sign Language is intuitive, and many nouns are iconic, meaning the sign visually looks like what it means, making it easy for children to learn.

For more information or to register, contact the library at (813) 788-6375.

Eighteen-month-old Leighton McIntosh, of Wesley Chapel, who has severe hearing loss, peeks over a row of bins filled with books, while her mother, Nina, and father, Spencer, keep a watchful eye on her during a Family Sign Language class at New River Branch Library. (Christine Holtzman)
After attending the Family Sign Language class with his mother Janet, 7-year-old Kevin Ojo, of Wesley Chapel, participates in a kid’s craft session, decorating an apple using marshmallows and gumdrops. Janet Ojo, who came to the area 10 years ago from Nigeria, said that she was thinking of her son’s future when she decided that he should learn American Sign Language. ‘You never know, Kevin may meet a deaf person at some point in his life and it may make a big difference in that person’s life if he knew how to communicate in sign language.’
Gabriela Southwick, an American Sign Language instructor who resides in Zephyrhills, shows the class how to say ‘thank you’ during the Family Sign Language class.

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