Sign Language

I love language, and learning sign was just one goal I had made for myself back in high school. I was inspired by a deaf friend I had made at camp. He was really sweet and we communicated via pen and paper, a good amount of fingerspelling and lots of dramatic, silent movie quality reenactments to tell stories. When I went to college, I ended up taking an AMAZING linguistics class on the structure of sign language that got me hooked on Linguistics as a major and even more interested in Deaf culture and signing. I could write an entire blog on ASL, it's origins, it's grammar, Deaf culture, etc...but I don't have the time and want to focus this on therapy. Anyway, I was pretty good at ASL for a couple of years, and then of course, like all language skills that go unused, I have forgotten a lot.

However, the amount that I can recall, is quite useful with small children, especially nonverbal ones! Children with delayed speech can use signs to communicate their needs. Since, let's face it, the purpose of language is to get our needs met. Many times the problem with little ones is we have NO IDEA what they want or need and thus they end up in a tantrum - frustrated and angry. Many of my co-workers/colleagues use ASL to help nonverbal autistic children communicate. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I know one 2 year old who can't quite figure it out yet and will put his hands out and have the therapist manipulate the his fingers to make the sign. At least he knows that he has to do SOMETHING with his hands. I think with more repetition, he will figure it out. He is also not a typical developer, he has delays.

It has actually been shown that you can teach babies sign language to help them communicate and that they can begin signing at around 6- 9 months. And no, it won't stop them from using verbal language. Typically developing children will start a 'one word' stage at around 12 - 15 months, regardless of signing knowledge.

Anyway, here is a great online dictionary of signs to check out www.signingsavvy.com. It's all on video, so you search for the word you are looking for and the video will show up. It's not really going to get you producing long, complicated, grammatically correct sentences, but it will have individual words which are super useful with small children. Happy signing!!