Deaf Grand Island toddler keeps his name sign

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by Katie Gauthier

Story Created: Nov 3, 2012 at 10:55 PM CDT

Story Updated: Nov 3, 2012 at 10:55 PM CDT

You may remember the story about a Grand Island toddler who is deaf and was faced with changing the way he signs his name.

The story went viral, but was he able to keep his name sign?

News 5's Katie Gauthier has the story.

Three year old Hunter signs his name by crossing his first two fingers.

Hunter has been a part of the Grand Island Early Intervention Program since he was about 6 months old and attends preschool at the Early Learning Center in Grand Island.

Back in August, his parents say that Hunter's teacher asked them to change Hunter's sign language name, citing the weapons policy.

However, Grand Island Public Schools said they were not requiring any student to change how their name is signed.

But the two parties have since come to a conclusion, let Hunter keep his name.

"We're going to go ahead and keep his name sign the same," said Brian Spanjer, Hunter's father.

Hunter's parents use SEE or Signing Exact English, while the school district uses ASL or American Sign Language.

"We're going to transition, temporarily going to try ASL and make sure that it doesn't create any communication barriers," Spanjer said. "We're still going to enforce SEE at home of course, but we're going to try to work together as far as that's concerned."

What's the big difference between the two?

"In ASL, you're only signing part of what you say," Spanjer explains. "Whereas in SEE, it's exact, down to the conjunctions. If you've got an apostrophe 's' on a word, you can do that with your hands. So it's an exact replication of the English language."

And the lines of communication between Hunter's parents and the school district are more open.

"A lot more communication, a lot more openness," Spanjer said. "We're trying to work together for Hunter. They've come around on most of the concerns that we've had."

When the story first broke, it went viral.

"I wasn't expecting it at all," Spanjer said. "When I got the call saying he's on the front page of Google, I said, he's what! Wait a minute, who? It caught us off guard. It was definitely a whirl wind."

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