On a cold winter evening, the sound of a siren blares from a distance of only a couple of meters. Sixteen-year-old Daniel is bent over fixing something under the hood of his car. Suddenly, he feels a strong grip on his side. He looks up in confusion, but is greeted by an angry police office trying to communicate something by shouting. When the police officer doesn't get the reaction he expected, he begins to forcefully handcuff Daniel. Unknown to the police office, Daniel could not respond because he could not hear the police officer because he was deaf. When Daniel tried to make some hand gestures to indicate to the police officer that he was deaf, his gestures were mistaken for resisting arrest. He was subsequently arrested and spent 12 hours in prison until it was finally realized that the police officer had arrested the wrong person. This could have been avoided if the police officer had understood sign language. But the police officer isn't the only person who doesn't understand sign language. Many people in the United States claim to know what sign language is, but very few of them actually know how to use it effectively. Most Americans confuse sign language with a set of hand gestures used to express English words with signs but fail to realize that sign language is much more than just hand gestures. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, sign language is “a formal language that employs a system of hand gestures for communication (as by the deaf).” In the United States, the main form of sign language is American Sign Language. American Sign Language is a linguistically complex visual language. It consists of making hand gestures combined with facial expressions and body postures. It is in the... middle of the paper... Special Education: A Reference for the Education of Handicapped and Other Exceptional Children and Adults (2006). Cripps J, Smalls A. “To Mainstream or Not to Integrate Your Deaf Child.” Cultural Center for the Deaf (nd).Denham, Lobeck. Integrating language knowledge into K-12 teaching. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2005. History of ASL. Manchester.edu, 2012.Johnson, Liddel, Erting. “Unlocking the Curriculum: Principles for Gaining Access to Deaf Education.” Department of Linguistics and Interpretation and Gallaudet Research Institute (1989): 1.Lieberman, Lauren J, et al. “Infusing Sign Language and Spanish into Physical Education.” Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance (2010): 45-49. National Institute of Health. American Sign Language. Maryland: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, 2011-2012.