Why is English difficult for Deaf people? The book explains this very well I think. English is a language that you grow up hearing. It would be difficult to understand some things in English if you weren't able to hear it. We have a very confusing language. We have words that sound the same but mean different things. We also have words that are spelled the same but said differently depending on the context. We also have plurals, conjunctions, rules, contractions, etc. ASL does not have some of these things. If you are signing in ASL then the sentence structure is set up differently. If ASL is all you've known for your whole live, of course learning English would be difficult!
The book talks about how it starts with the family. Teaching your children from an early age is what you want to do. They need to know and study the language from an early age so they understand it. It also says, "we should also be asking why so many hearing people, especially teachers and parents of deaf children, know nothing about ASL (p. 153)." I think this is a great statement. Deaf children should know about their language and culture. It will be important for them later in life. If you go through your whole life learning English based sign language, when you grow up it will be more difficult. Going to a college for the deaf, I'm sure all they do is sign in ASL. If you aren't exposed to ASL and you go to that college, you'll probably be behind.
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