using sign language...

[Ericsmomma]

I think this has been discussed before, but here goes..
I had the opportunity to take a ASL course at our local Hearing and Speech agency. I signed up, but I never went.
I wasn't sure if this was something Eric could learn. Being non-verbal, he is learning some simple signs at school, but I'm not sure he would use it to communicate. I talked to his speech teacher, and she didn't think he could do the ASL version either.
She wasn't sure if he had the fine motor skills to use full sentences like they teach at ASL. I agreed, so instead I spent my class money on SIGNING TIME video's. (Eric loves these, and seems to learn fairly quickly ...but only when prompted.
He doesn't really initiate the signing). My question is...to all of you with non-verbal kids, do you do signing? If so, how much, type, and success rate. thanks, Dolly

[Becky]

Justin does use sign language, not in sentences, he will sign, more, eat ,drink,please. stop and more but just manily the simple signs, we dont push him to use it and he will use it on his own most of the time, we allso really try to get him to say the word with the sign, I see the more he signs the harder he tries to say the word.
Good luck
Becky

[CC]

Dolly ~

Chris actually likes sign, he will even pull the book out and look and try and make the signs. Colin is the only one that signs lots with Chris. He can sign some very well and others are "his version" LOL

Not pushing this, BUT have you thought bout an augmentative device for Eric??

Honestly Christopher's first preference is always verbal, weather you can understand him or not, seems he thinks you should be able to understand him, KWIM?? Then he will go to sign if you are really not able or pull you to show you and very last resort is Augmentative. For some reason he does not like it or think he needs it

For us Chris can say now at 14 words he never was able to say as a younger child and that is soooo COOL for all BUT the reality for us is he needs help to communicate with the outside world, especially now as he will be going off campus for work programs.

Sign is a great tool but least in my mind the augmentative helps cause its as simple as touch and say KWIM and everyone can understand that, not all can understand sign.

Just sharing our experience not saying its the way

CC ~

[Chester]

JT signs, but he also gets speech therapy, but it's really slow in coming. They have started some early augmentative devices too. He's not quite ready for them, but I'm glad he's getting the exposure. School has some simple PEC's up and around too.

I'll give JT whatever he needs to help him communicate. I'm hoping someday that his speech will kick in, but until then he's got ways to "talk" to us.

Saying all of that, the director of EI for the school district tried to take sign out of his IEP, saying that it could hinder his speech. I just roll my eyes at her and tell her it will stay in, thank you very much. I'm convinced that JT's signing hasn't taken away from speaking, if anything it's added to it. He's not signing sentences, but occasionally two to three words are thrown together, "more please ball" Not proper grammar, but I'll take it.

I bet Eric will catch on quickly what signing could do for him. Once the light goes off in his head, that "oh, when I sign drink, I get a drink" you'll see it a lot.

JT, the king of manipulation, has learned that signing "potty" could get him down from the dinner table, or out of bed or out of sitting to read a new book, or, or, but Mom and Dad don't fall for it anymore. I'm waiting for him to have an accident one of these times, just to show me!

Good Luck and keep us posted on his progress!
Dawn

[trishasmom]

There are many styles of signing, there is the ASL language which is what you are referring I believe and then there is the asl in pidgeon and signed english word order and several others. We use the ASL in signed english word order for Trisha. She also loves the signing time videos but I am requesting that the school provide her with proper sign language instruction now so that she can communicate more than just a few things to us. Some ST don't believe sign is a good thing for our kids but I'd like to say that the more we sign with Trisha the more she tries to verbalize. For example, last night we were laying on the couch watching her signing time videos, she was signing along with them (she never did that before) and signing as best she could (yes she does sign approximations but that is ok, the more they sign the better they get and she does have very delayed fine motor skills even now at 14 yrs old. that is another story!) Anyway I was amazed at how many signs she knew just from watching the signing time videos and how when they said the word she would say and try to sign it at the same time. Of course I heard and still hear that she can't sign perfectly or that not everyone in the world knows sign or that it will keep her from using her voice. That is all a bunch of BULL! There are people who are deaf who for one reason or another have to use sign approximations, the world will not be the caregiver to my child and those close to her will learn her style of signing and be able to translate for her and she IS learning to using her voice more and more. Think about it, when we sign, we use both the sign and the voice so she gets the visual as well as the audio which is a big plus for her since she also has a mild to sever hearing loss in both ears. Just my 2 cents. :-)

[kellyds]

I don't know how verbal Joshua will end up being. He won't be two until next month. But, he has used signs for almost a year. I felt goofy doing it but, I've signed for him since he was about six days old. I modify the signs for him, so they are similar to the "real" ASL signs, but easier for him to do.

So far, he has learned Mom, Dad, hi, bye-bye, eat, milk, more, and play. I'm trying to come up with a modified sign for "drink" that isn't so much like "eat", and that's what we'll work on next. He uses his signs all the time. Of course, I haven't even tried to get him to use sentences yet.

He can say Mama and Dada now, so, for those two words, he says and signs at the same time.

[trishasmom]

kellyds said:

I don't know how verbal Joshua will end up being. He won't be two until next month. But, he has used signs for almost a year. I felt goofy doing it but, I've signed for him since he was about six days old. I modify the signs for him, so they are similar to the "real" ASL signs, but easier for him to do.

So far, he has learned Mom, Dad, hi, bye-bye, eat, milk, more, and play. I'm trying to come up with a modified sign for "drink" that isn't so much like "eat", and that's what we'll work on next. He uses his signs all the time. Of course, I haven't even tried to get him to use sentences yet.

He can say Mama and Dada now, so, for those two words, he says and signs at the same time.

If you don't mind, may I make a suggestion? Don't modify the signs for him, sign them correctly so that later on he doesn't get confused BUT accept the way he signs them. If he modifies that is one thing but if we modify then we might be teaching them a sign that could be considered an insult to the DEAF community. Always sign it correctly over time he may come to be able to sign it correctly as well. Also, if he learns the correct way to sign and if someone else is signing to him he will recoginize what they are signing. :-)

[lespring]

It could be that the signs you're trying to make him use are NOT the ones he wants to be using at the moment. Parents often get stuck in the habit of only giving signs for nouns and verbs. What about emtions? Does he have all those signs? What about age appropriate statments? Does he have the signs to say, "I don't want to!" or, "I don't like that!"

Remember the communication isn't always positive, and your child needs a way to express frustration as well as request things. The best way to go about this is to sign EVERYTHING you say. EVERYTHING! Remember your child needs to see a sign/hear a word THOUSANDS of times, AND seen it used appropriately all those times, before ever being able to use it themselves.

Is this tough to do? Yes, if you're not fluent in sign, because you're going to find yourself stubling, not know the signs for a lot of things. And there a lot of words in English that don't have signs and need to be fingerspelled.

This is where Cued Speech comes in. hearing arents of deaf kids have known for awhile that CS is easier to learn than ASL. And easier to use, because it doesn't change. (ASL changes all the time as new concepts are added to the language, just like English gains new words) But CS just stays the same, so once you know the system you can say ANY WORD, or ANY SENTENCE you want...you're not limited to what you can find in a sign dictionary, or what your ST teaches you (and you hope they taught you the right way, cuz 50% of the time they're wrong!)

~Leah~ ASL interpreter/ Cued Language Transliterator

[Chris]

ASL has encouraged Sarah to become more verbal. I like the fact that we can understand what she is saying because we recognize the sign. I don't think we would even know she was saying many words if she didn't sign. Because of ASL, we know Sarah knows numbers 1-10, the alphabet (upper and lower case), all the colors and basic shapes. She is also reading several words. If she didn't sign, we wouldn't have known to work with her on these things. She loves learning.

I think it is important to give our kids every tool they can use to increase their communication skills. Ultimately, I hope Sarah will be able to communicate using speech.

I can't say enough positive things about the Signing Time dvds. Not only has it taught Sarah to sign but it taught her so many other concepts. They are wonderful, fantastic, superb!!!

I wanted to add that Sarah's fine motor skills are very delayed and she doesn't sign perfectly but as she gets older, her signs are getting more refined.

Chris

[trishasmom]

chris2 said:

I wanted to add that Sarah's fine motor skills are very delayed and she doesn't sign perfectly but as she gets older, her signs are getting more refined.

Chris

Same here for Trisha. Also her fine motor skills are still underdeveloped and she will be 15 next month, but her signs are improving and the more we work on her signs the more it helps her fine motor skills. There is a book called Pre-Sign Language Motor Skills written by Marsha Dunn Klein. Our OT loaned it to use because she thought it would be beneficial for us and she was right, it is. It talks about the relationship of the sign to the body, hand shapes, sign language activities and more.

[kerri]

We love Signing Time!! Yosh learns both signs and speech from it. We started signing with Yosh when he was a few months old and while his vocabulary includes about 30 words, he uses jsut a few on a regular basis. But those few words are very important. Yosh uses a combination of sign and speech to say "I want tv, book, eat, sleep, music, out, ball and a few others. Signing has cut down on frustration considerably and I think its helped him learn to speak.

[alisonzmom]

Signing Time fans here too!!! We started Alison with them when she was about 9 months old. I really feel that they helped to cut down on her frustration level until she actually was able to say some words. Alison will be 4 soon and has quite the sign vocabulary and spoken vocabulary but I have to say that the words that are most easily understood are the ones that she first started "saying" in sign language. Signing has definitely helped to bridge the gap between what she "wants" to say and what she able to say, KWIM? And I found that the people who know her were very interested in learning signs so that they could understand her too, people like family friends, neighbors, even some of the store clerks we see on a regular basis!!!

Barb

Barb

[mommygwen]

We started with "baby talk" signs. (More milk. Thank you. Happy. Cold.) As he was able to talk instead of sng I continued to use ASL for the WHOLE sentance and insisted that he say 'I want to drink more milk please'. He NEVER used the the ASL signs for 'is', 'the', 'she', 'he', 'to', etc. But I sign them and he says them.

[Jessie]

Well, for Jason he seemed to have picked up signing fairly well and then would drop the sign when he could speak the word. For whatever reason, however, signing was not an on-going form of communication taught to him so he doesn't sign too much now. Cued speech has worked fairly well with him over the past year or so.

As far as the Baby Signing Times video - I bought it for Ellie to watch so she could communicate with Jason and she loves it. She doesn't use the signs, but she does try to say the words, interesting huh? That DVD is played so much around here, both Brian and I have that song in our heads constantly. He hates that woman's voice so I just crack up when I catch him singing the song!! Very funny.



Jessie

[marisa]

We use sign with Laura (she will be 3 in May). She loves it! We have a sign Language teacher that comes once a week through EI. Laura can now sign about 63 signs without showing her the sign first. Example is her animals: I say what it that? and she will sign the animal. It has worked great for us. Laura is verbal as well, so I am not sure how that comes into play. She talks constantly, but we can only understand a small part of what she is saying. With the signing, we can put it all together and this makes her very happy and you can see how proud she feels when she is successful.

Marisa