those who use signing for their children

[fortheluvofpooh]

Not just for babies. For the little girl I babysit that I mentioned in my other post who has speech delays. We have 2 therapists come in to my house, each comes one x a week. I am wondering if you think trying to get her to sign one new word each day is too much? I know that you do not know the little girl so you can;t reallllly say, but in general speaking. She can learn, she is smart, just speech delay and fine motor skill issues.

 

[mom2maggie]

I don't see a problem with it at all! Have you looked into the "Signing Time" dvds? Those worked great with my DD4 - she loved watching them.

 

[woodkins]

My dd7 was speech delayed and also received ot for fine motor delays and motor planning issues. We used alot of signing with her and our speech therapist (who came 5 days per week) suggested learning 1-2 signs per week this way they were truly "learned' and would not be forgotten when moving on to the next one. That being said, each child is different and you can always try 1 per day and then pull back if it is too much too fast. Good Luck!

 

[littlbugmom]

I use ASL daily at work and to a lesser extent, at home. I work at a residential school for the Deaf, so my children have been signing since birth.

Sort of.


As babies and toddlers, my children used a lot of sign. My DS was also speech delayed and it did help avoid some frustration when he was trying to make his wishes known. However, he is also a hearing child and eventually, stopped the signing except for occassional play and reading. My kids are 9 and 5 now and enjoy practicing with me or when they visit me at work.


I recommend using the signs you want the child to learn. Not in a "one a day" format.....just use the signs. Learn them yourself and use them with the children.

Videos from the library are fun with little ones. The stories that are read aloud (or animated) with a person signing in the corner are a nice start but I really like the stories that are signed in ASL and then have a voice over interpreting the signs.

You can also find websites that help a lot. Do a search for learning ASL online. You will find a lot with video quizes for different levels. This will help you learn the signs you want to use with the kids.


Good luck. ASL is a beautiful language. I've been fluent for 20 years but STILL learn something new from all of the people I work with...children and adults!

 

[2binak]

I recommend using the signs you want the child to learn. Not in a "one a day" format.....just use the signs. Learn them yourself and use them with the children.

This is what we did with DD. We would learn the sign and then say the word while signing in normal conversation. DD caught on to about one sign a week, but she became verbal very quickly so we didn't get to teach her many signs. It was very helpful though.

 

[Leajess99]

http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm for those wanting to learn signs as well. This is a site I found when trying to locate signs to teach my youngest who was also severely speech delayed. I wish we had known about Signing time when she was first diagnosed. It would have been such a help.

 

[jenn-n-okla]

I use ASL daily at work and to a lesser extent, at home. I work at a residential school for the Deaf, so my children have been signing since birth.

Sort of.


Good luck. ASL is a beautiful language. I've been fluent for 20 years but STILL learn something new from all of the people I work with...children and adults!

What residential school for the Deaf do you work at? I am at the Oklahoma School for the Deaf. I too learn something new all the time from students or adults who are full deaf. The slang terms are the ones I am having to learn the fastest though. Just like the English slang terms it is hard to keep up.

Oh I wanted to mention www.aslpro.com I use it even at work for kids who don't know the sign to a word in their library book. I teach them that they can always "look it up". For many times I do not know the sign myself.

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

How old is she and how many signs does she have now? I think that for most kids, the process of learning how to speak or sign is like a snowball rolling down a hill, it gathers momentum. So expecting a child with no sign to suddenly learn 7 signs in a week is a huge amount, but for a child with a vocabulary of many signs adding 7 more isn't nearly as monumental a task.

 

[sl_underwood]

My son came to me at 3.5 years of age with no language. We used signing to communicate. We would speak as we signed the words, re enforcing their meanings when possible with an actual object. He picked it up very fast.

 

[fortheluvofpooh]

K is 2 1/2 yrs old and has a vocab of only 5 signs. SO I suppose 1 new sign a week is better. I had no idea, that is why I ask. THank you everyone for your helpfullness.

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

K is 2 1/2 yrs old and has a vocab of only 5 signs. SO I suppose 1 new sign a week is better. I had no idea, that is why I ask. THank you everyone for your helpfullness.

I think that one sign a week is probably realistic at first, but like I said, it's quite likely that she'll take off, and that at some point she'll be picking up signs daily. If you think about speech aquisition, it happens that way the first word takes about a year, then they slowly add more, and suddenly it's like the dam burst and you can't really count the vocabulary.

 

[patchchild]

The more signs you start using, the more your child will pick up. Also, you might want to sandwich the sign, as you're hoping your child will pick up both sign and spoken English.

To sandwich, you say the word, then sign it, then say it again. When you speak and sign at the same time the child can tune out the one that is harder for them and they don't pick up both as quickly. (learned from the school for the Deaf my son attends)