Two Thumbs Up For "Switched at Birth"

On Tuesday nights, I make sure I am tuned into ABC Family’s Switched at Birth.

 Switched at Birth hit the small screen last summer and came back for a winter premiere in January.  With only three more episodes left in the season, I will be sitting at the edge of my seat taking it all in and wondering if a second season is in the mix. When the show launched, it had the highest original series debut in ABC Family’s history, so hopefully that will be a good reason to keep the series running.

image from hulu.com

For those of you unfamiliar with the series, the title sums up the gist of the show. Two teenage girls find out that they were accidentally switched at birth.  The girls also come from very different backgrounds.  Bay Kennish is an artistic teenager who comes from a wealthy family. In the first episode of the show, she was studying blood types in her biology class and began to wonder why her blood type did not match that of her parents.  To fulfill her curiosity, her parents and her go for a genetic testing.  After the testing was finished, it confirmed that Bay was not biologically related to her parents.  The Kennish family discovered that the hospital mistakenly switched her with another newborn, who they soon find out to be Daphne Vasquez.  Daphne is a deaf girl that lives with her mother and grandmother who are struggling to make ends meet. Doesn’t is sound drama filled already?

What makes this show different from all the other teen dramas is the use of ASL, American Sign Language.  This really draws me to the show.  A few of the main characters are deaf or hard of hearing and some of the ones who are not deaf, are learning to sign.  I think this really shows the target audience, mostly teenagers, that people come from many walks of life and are faced with challenges that they learn to live with.  It also teaches people that there are many different ways to communicate with one another. 

Daphne Vasquez is played by Katie Leclerc. Leclerc is hard of hearing and she suffers from Meniere’s disease, which is an inner ear disorder that affects balance and hearing. In the show, she reads lips, uses her voice, and signs as she is communicating with others. Emmett Bledsoe, played by Sean Berdy, is another deaf character in the show who was born deaf.  In the series, he only signs and does not use his voice; just with the exception of a few words in one of the past shows.      

Before watching Switched at Birth, the only sign language I knew was the alphabet. Now I have picked up multiple signs such as "thank you," and "I love you." Sign language is something that really interests me and I hope to learn more signs in the future.