One of the fun and special traditions enjoyed and shared by the Deaf Community is signing stories using Number or Alphabet hand shapes. In these stories, various hand shapes do not stand for the numbers and letters themselves, but are used as signs or gestures to convey concepts. They are signed in alphabetical or numerical order, and used in amazing ways to sign or act out a story. Video excerpt from American Sign Language for Families video series by Color of Language.
http://www.coloroflanguage.com/asl_abc_stories.htm
The rise of the Deaf Pride movement in the 1980s has introduced a distinction between deaf and Deaf, with the capitalized form used specifically in referring to deaf persons belonging to the community—also known as Deaf culture—that has formed around the use of American Sign Language as the preferred means of communication.