[nabs-l] Body language and facial expressions

[Ashley Bramlett]

that type of attitude won't get you a job or friends. Its not about fitting 
into a box, its about learning appropriate communication behaviors to get 
along in the world. If I decided to live in France and work there, I'd learn 
French culture, ways of greeting one another, personal space, and other 
customs and would also learn what was deemed offensive there. So in our 
culture here, I'll want to learn the same things only differently since most 
people learn by observation.
Ashley

-----Original Message----- 
From: Carly Mihalakis
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2011 4:03 PM
To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list ; National 
Association of Blind Students mailing list
Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Body language and facial expressions


Good afternoon, Ashley I think,

What's with trying to cram everyone into boxes
upon which are plastered identifiers like
"blindness" and "cognitive impairments?" People
ought to feel they can just do what feels right,
and comfortable and not be pressured to shead
some mannerisms, while retaining others. Doncha
think? And, besides, there are folks starving, in
this here world so if kid needs to rock, and he
doesn't happen to have so-called cog native
impairment, let the kid rock around the whole,
clock!11/19/2011, Ashley Bramlett wrote:
>Bridgit, Very well said! Sighted people in a culture learn body language 
>and facial expressions from observing others; our culture emphasises 
>personal space, shaking hands to greet, and eye contact just as some 
>examples. Blind and low vision people won’t see it, but if someone works 
>with us, its still a learned behavior; we just learn in a different way. I 
>think behaviors such as eye contact and shaking hands  are natural since I 
>learned early on as did sighted peers. Once practiced, it became more 
>automatic. I also like your comment that we should try to extinguish 
>behaviors associated with mental and cognitive behaviors. Rocking is one of 
>them. Yet, I think it would be unnatural to learn something now; I could do 
>it, but it would probably be stiffer and not as natural like if I learned 
>gestures. What I do though in a presentation is look around the room from 
>left to right; speakers to do this to get attention and establish 
>themselves before talking to a group; I do it even though I cannot see a 
>lot, especially toward the back of the room. I can also say yes or no with 
>my head because I was taught early on. But other nonverbals such as 
>winking, shrugging shoulders, and becconing with the hand were not taught 
>and I think I'd be a little stiffer and unnatural doing them. Still it 
>would be good to try and learn. Ashley -----Original Message----- From: 
>Bridgit Pollpeter Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2011 2:30 PM To: 
>nabs-l at nfbnet.org Subject: [nabs-l] Body language and facial expressions 
>This is such a dodgy issue. It is a fine balance, and while I understand we 
>shouldn't use and act in ways completely unnatural to us, we also should 
>try to follow behavior that's not indicative of other disabilities 
>associated with mental and cognitive issues. Most body language and facial 
>expressions are learned behavior. Since most of the population is sighted, 
>we learn facial expressions and body language from observing others. Babies 
>and little children often mimic what they see others doing. As we grow 
>older, we tend to adopt body and facial expressions natural to us as 
>individuals, but often associated, whether conscious or unconscious, 
>through learned behavior. It stands to reason that if a person is trying to 
>adopt behavior nonvisually, one would work with another person to adopt, 
>and understand, certain facial and body expressions. Just because we learn 
>the behavior, A. K. A. facial expressions and body language, through a 
>nonvisual medium, does not necessarily imply that the facial and body 
>expressions a blind person replaces with either more stoic and rigid 
>expressions or movement, or rocking or inappropriate movements, is 
>inorganic, or unnatural, to that individual. If you learn, though 
>nonvisually, a different way to move and express yourself, why does it have 
>to be unnatural and arbitrary? Like sighted people, we're adopting 
>behavior, just in a different way; it's learned behavior though learned in 
>a nonvisual manner. And as I've stated earlier, I believe asking u to 
>cover, hide, something like our eyes is equal to bleaching skin or 
>straightening hair or covering accents/dialects; I don't, however, think 
>that changing certain behaviors, such as rocking, can be equated to this. 
>First, all people have physical movements often unique to them as an 
>individual whether noticeable or not. It's often instinctive and 
>unconscious. However, some movements are associated with mental, cognitive 
>or psychological disabilities/concerns. In particular, rocking is often 
>associated with developmental disabilities or abuse victims. Certain facial 
>expressions are also associated with developmental disabilities and other 
>psychological issues. Obviously people who are blind, while many do have 
>multiple disabilities, don't have developmental disabilities, but because 
>some of the "blindisms" are also linked to such disabilities, I don't think 
>it's a problem to expect people who are blind to correct such behavior. I 
>don't see this similar to changing, or concealing, body parts or internal 
>attributes associated with race or ethnicity, or in the case of 
>disabilities that can't be controlled such as the functioning of eyes or 
>missing limbs. In a nutshell, which I have problems fitting things into, 
>smile, my point is that body language and many facial expressions are 
>picked up through learned behavior. Whether we learn this behavior visually 
>or nonvisually, it doesn't mean we're just going through the motions- 
>acting as it were. It's the same process just done nonvisually. Just as we 
>learn to read and write Braille or use adaptive technology with computers. 
>We're doing the same things, just in a different way. I also don't think we 
>can compare certain changes nade , physically or internally, indicative of 
>race or ethnicity, to correcting social behavior such as body language or 
>facial expressions either linked to other disabilities or inappropriate to 
>a given situation. Sincerely, Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter Read my blog at: 
>http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/ "History is not what 
>happened; history is what was written down." The Expected One- Kathleen 
>McGowan Message: 7 Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:26:31 -0700 From: Marc Workman 
><mworkman.lists at gmail.com> To: National Association of Blind Students 
>mailing list <nabs-l at nfbnet.org> Subject: Re: [nabs-l] Blindness versus 
>other minority groups Message-ID: 
><039F2609-C62A-4985-83E1-FBC50C239F70 at gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; 
>charset=us-ascii Carly wrote, How can facial expressions and other body 
>language convey meaning if they are not naturally, ocuring? For this reason 
>I don't see a reason to sort of put on nonverbal, expression if, behind it 
>there is little, meaning? I want to take Carly's point further and suggest 
>that pressuring blind people to look and act like others is in itself 
>wrong.  I'm not suggesting there is no value to it, nor am I saying it 
>should never be done, but it makes me uncomfortable. The subject of this 
>thread is comparing blindness to other minorities. I think there's a 
>parallel between pressuring blind people to look and act like everyone else 
>and things that some minorities used to do and still do for similar 
>reasons.  In the past, among African Americans, there existed the practice 
>of skin bleaching and hair straightening for the purpose of appearing less 
>black and/or more white.  I can't give evidence to show how common this 
>was, but Malcolm X talked about trying to remove the kink from his hair 
>himself and finding it a physically and emotionally painful process.  There 
>are also surgeries performed to give people of East Asian descent more 
>"white looking" eyes and Jews more "white looking" noses.  These are just a 
>couple of examples.  Pressuring minorities to adopt the dominant group's 
>style of dress, gate, diction, body language, etc also often happens. I 
>hope we can agree that this is at the very least unfortunate.  There may be 
>psychological and other explanations for why this occurs, but feeling 
>pressured to get a nose job or to bleach your skin so that you look more 
>like one particular group in society is problematic to say the least.  So 
>what's the difference between these cases and pressuring a blind person to 
>adopt the behavioural habits, facial expressions, body language etc of some 
>sighted people? You might say that we live in a sighted world and so we 
>have to adapt. There is something to this, but I wonder if it would be 
>equally acceptable to say we live in a white-dominated world so non-whites 
>have to adapt.  It may be the case that blind people who don't "look blind" 
>are more successful and integrate better, and it also may be that 
>non-whites who look and act white are more successful and integrate better, 
>but in neither case is it just that the minorities need to assume the 
>dominant groups characteristics in order to be successful. What ultimately 
>needs to happen is not that blind people begin to look and act like sighted 
>people, but that we all become more accepting of differences that are 
>arbitrary and irrelevant.  Most, if not all, so called blindisms are 
>irrelevant, and I see no more reason to stamp them out than I do for trying 
>to eliminate various differences in behaviour and appearance possessed by 
>other minority groups. Cheers, 
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