Years ago I read about the benefits of teaching babies sign language, in time to teach dd14 a couple of basic signs when she was about a year old. I didn’t really know many signs and my motivation to teach my infants wasn’t strong enough to push me to extend myself to learn more.
Enter the birth of my youngest, now 2.5. I knew that with a diagnosis of Trisomy 21, he was likely to experience communication difficulties. I decided to assist him in expressing himself rather than waiting for speech. At 14 months, when I began introducing early reading I also began introducing signs.
Neurodevelopmental therapists oppose teaching sign language to a child with T21, believing that the frustration to want to express oneself encourages a better degree of clarity in speech later on. I trust their many years of experience but I’m not willing to withhold a way for my child to communicate now for the sake of later gains. Every person wants and needs to be able to communicate with others, and deserves to be given the tools to succeed. Especially children for whom it’s more of a struggle than others.
There are plenty of benefits to using sign language for all young children. Young children understand so much more than they’re able to express, and giving them ways to let you know what they want is very helpful to you both. Sign language encourages language comprehension, fine motor skills and is cognitively stimulating.
It’s not hard to learn basic signs. I’ve learned a number of signs from the Signing Times website; when I needed others, I looked them up at Signing Savvy. The Signing Savvy site has a much wider vocabulary of words but the video quality can’t compare to that of Signing Times. They’re both great free resources.
Yirmiyahu is limited to the signs he learns by what signs I learn. Recently a while went by and I kept telling myself I needed to look up more words and not getting to it. So I began considering buying signing dvds for him to watch. When I looked into this, I learned that Signing Times has a digital subscription option – with a free monthly trial that gives unlimited access to the programs they have available. So I signed up!
So far we’re enjoying this a lot. There are several series that include Baby Signing Times and Signing Times. Each series has a number of programs that are grouped according to topic and taught together with songs. The program host has an engaging and fun way of presenting the signs and is extremely clear. Our boys ages 5, 7 and 8 are enjoying watching with Yirmiyahu and me, which is really nice. They’re learning the signs and that’s helpful so that they aren’t dependent on me to translate what Yirmiyahu is ‘saying’. And they can also help me translate when I’m not remembering what sign Yirmiyahu is using! (Yirmi has a better memory than I do!:))
When the host introduces a sign, on the opposite side of the screen is a picture of what she’s demonstrating along with the word written out. This reinforces Yirmiyahu’s reading program, which has many of the same words.
Another thing I really appreciate is that the children in the programs are diverse and reflective of children in the real world. They include a number of children with Down syndrome and other disabilities; children with disabilities are usually shut away from others and having them portrayed as naturally as any other kid is extremely important.
Watching these programs has made it easier and more fun to learn signs. I don’t know yet if I’ll sign up for a subscription when my trial runs out but I’m certainly enjoying the access that we have now!
Avivah
While I have no clue about T21 nor the developmental work involved, I feel like common sense would tell me that giving a child a language base is a far superior tool to teaching or motivating a child to learn a second language than forcing them into frustration as their only motivation to learn. As someone who has her degree in Applied Linguistics (although hasn’t used it since college…), is a language lover, and one who studied American Sign Language for 2 years, this thoroughly bothers me that they would suggest that. But again, I have no schema for T21 nor neurodevelopmental therapy. I could see a potential argument that the child would remain comfortable in the rudimentary signs; yet, the child would only be able to communicate with family or someone who has similar knowledge. Certainly, if the child wishes to move beyond that, I would think it would be motivation enough.
Whatseems like a thousand years ago, I was a speech and language pathologist and had my own private practice in Globe, Arizona. I had many wonderful students with varieties of abilities and challenges. One of them was a 5 year old ( when I met him) who had Trisomy 21 (Downs Syndrome) who had a powerhouse mom who supported and advocate for him. This parent was paying for private speech therapy services and the therapist was working on the correct production of sounds( R, L, etc)….My professional attitude is that childrens therapy should should reflect language rather than sounds. Oh yes, I did classic speech therapy on sounds- thouse sounds that a child was not producing AT HIS AGE LEVEL.
That being said, the mom liked my thinking and we talked (as I wasthe speech therapist in the scholl her son attended), she letting me know what her son likes, what he participated in.
We developed a plan (included his IEP) which focused on language, rather than sounds doing things that involved him with his classmates and even his Sunday School. We worked on developing a signing vocabulary(we used total communication using the sign and the word) so that he could communicate his needs and wants. We also did some basic fingerspelling. The mom used all this information at home also. Mom brought songs from his Sunday School also. He learned the signs and participated with his Sunday School class. In his school class, I taught the ABC song with fingerspelling and signs for the end of the year program and this young boy participated with his class also.
The most important thing that happened asa result of Mom and Dad using fingerspelling and signs at home was that Dad (who had no relationship with this son) started to interact with his son, including going riding on an ATV with his dad-just like his older brother. This happened b/c there was a way to communicate that previously didn’t exist.
His first grade year plan was developed sothat he independently moved from classroom to special classroom to art, music, physical eduacation, lunch, interacting with his peers throughout the day. BTW, which had never been done before.
Actively involved parents and educators working together made this possible.
Avivah,as you say, communication is the issue and using a variety of medium (media) to accomplish this makes the child(and the family) a winner.
Kol HaKavod for knowing your child and his needs!
Feige
We did asl with our young babies. It was one of the best things we ever did. Giving a kid a way to communicate with you is awesome and motivating.takes away so much frustration on both ends. And we loved signing times!