Kindergartner Claire Koch of Clearwater, Florida, wanted her mom and dad to fully enjoy her holiday concert. So she did one thing: She signed it for them. Both her parents are deaf. The video her mom, Lori, posted on YouTube has gone viral worldwide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQeygYqOn8g
The signing wasn’t planned; Claire, 5, just decided to do it. “We don’t use Claire to interpret for us—she did it because that’s how she communicates with us,” says Lori. She uploaded the video on the heels of the Nelson Mandela funeral scandal, in which a so-called deaf “interpreter” signed gibberish while standing with global leaders. (Yesterday, word came out that he’d been admitted to a psychiatric ward.)
“Claire’s video put a positive highlight on a bad experience,” Lori says. Marlee Matlin retweeted it with the words, “This is too cute. Can you spot the child who has deaf parents?”
Claire’s become somewhat of a celebrity at her school. “Some fifth-graders came up to her and introduced themselves by finger-spelling their names in sign language,” says Lori. “She was really inspired by that.”
From my other blog:
We had entirely too much fun at the doctor’s office