Want more help? Email Sandy Heaton: wordbase@suddenlink.net
Good Online ASL dictionaries:
Good ASL Baby Sign Links:
Signing Time - This is a series that you can purchase but you can also find a lot of the songs and signs for free on YouTube!
ASL Baby Series – This is a deaf run and owned company that provides great products
5 Reasons Why Parents Teach Signs to Hearing Babies
by Eileen Ladino, M.A.
In the past decade, a growing number of parents worldwide have discovered the joys of using simple sign language with their preverbal babies. Why sign language? Babies can gain control of their hands long before they develop the oral motor skills necessary for speech, so signs allow little ones to express their thoughts without crying or whining – a bonus for both babies and parents. But reducing frustration is just one reason parents love using Sign Language. Here’s what researchers Linda Acredcolo, PhD and Susan Goodwyn, PhD, the authors of Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk (Contemporary Books, 2002), have found in their 20 years of research on the effects of Baby Signs on babies’ development. Sign Language . . .
1. help babies talk sooner . . . and boost spoken vocabulary
2. empower babies to direct adults’ attention to what they want to talk about
3. reduce frustration
4. provide a strong foundation for early literacy
5. stimulate intellectual development
1. Using sign language with babies help them talk sooner
One concern that parents have is the effect of sign language on speech development. Acredolo and Goodwyn have found that Baby Signers actually talk sooner than non-signers. The reason being that they are using expressive language from an earlier age, playing with words, ideas and pairing them up before they have even developed the oral motor skills necessary for speech. In addition, they have found that by age 8, children who signed had stronger reading skills than those who did not. For more information on this NIH funded research, please go to http://www.tinyfingers.com/benefits.html
2. Sign Language Empowers Babies to Initiate Conversations
Most babies will show signs of wanting to communicate by coming up with their own simple gestures: they will raise their arms to say “Pick me up,” reach for things they want, pat the couch to say “up”, or open their mouth wide when they want more food. Signs expand on this idea and offer children an opportunity to communicate about specific ideas or concepts.
After returning from a walk around the neighborhood, Isabel looked at her mom and signed “airplane.”
“Yes,” her mom said, “we saw a big airplane up in the sky today. It was flying to a place far away.”
In this exchange, the child expressed a topic on her mind and the parent was able to elaborate on it, modeling language on a topic the child initiated.
3. Sign Language Reduces Frustration
Parents and researchers agree that after learning sign language as a communication tool, both child and parent have fewer moments of frustration that stem from a lack of communication. Tantrums decrease, and parents have found that they can discipline or redirect their child in public without using their voice, therefore avoiding embarrassing moments for the child.
The most frustrating age for a toddler is 17-22 months because although he is mobile and he understands what you’re saying, he may not be able to communicate about what he wants. Sign language can help clarify communication between parent and child, replacing grunts and whining with clear expressions of thoughts. Children as young as 6 to 8 months old can understand the signs for “milk,” “more,” and “all done.” Between 8 and 12 months, children often begin signing “more” when they are out of Cheerios or would like another push on a swing, or they will sign “all done” when they have had enough to eat or want to leave the mall. Once children start speaking, parents have found that signs help fill in the gaps until the child is able to intelligibly communicate all the thoughts he wants to share.
4. Sign Language Provides a Strong Foundation for Early Literacy
Signs make books more meaningful to babies. Your child can be an active participant in story time, labeling pictures and predicting what comes next in their favorite books. This kind of participation and interaction helps children understand the similarities and differences between concepts. When they first learn the sign for “dog,” they may generalize it and label all mammals in a book “dog.” Once the parent has helped them learn to see the distinguishing features of a dog, a horse and a bear, they can then learn to generalize the sign for “dog” to the family pet, a stuffed animal and the star of Blue’s Clues, given appropriate feedback from adults.
5. Sign Language Stimulates Intellectual Development
Participation in reading activities, along with the vocabulary boost inherent in early communication, lead to stronger early reading skills. Marilyn Daniels, author of Dancing With Words: Signing for Hearing Children’s Literacy (Bergin & Garvey, 2001), found in her research that hearing students in pre-kindergarten who had the benefit of adding the visual and kinesthetic (movement) elements of sign language to verbal and written language scored significantly higher on standardized vocabulary tests than hearing students with no sign instruction. Adding sign language to verbal communication has been found to help enhance a preschool child’s vocabulary, spelling and early reading skills.
Conclusion
Many parents find that using Sign Language with their baby stimulates language development, strengthens the parent-infant bond and provides a window into their baby’s world. For information on classes, books and videos, please see Tiny Fingers or contact us at classes@tinyfingers.com
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Eileen Ladino is the founder of Tiny Fingers. She earned an MA in Deaf Education from Gallaudet University and has 15 years of experience as a teacher of both deaf and hearing students and as a freelance sign language interpreter. She is now experiencing the joy of using American Sign Language with her own hearing daughter and is dedicated to improving communication between babies and their parents & caregivers through her tiny fingers classes and materials.
The difference between ASL and English signs
Posted by John @ Signing Savvy on Tuesday, September 7, 2010 as Learning Tips
One question many new signers ask me is: “What is the difference between ASL signs and English signs?” and “What does it mean to have an initialized sign?” These are two really good questions. It is important to understand the difference, particularly when signing to a member of the Deaf community.
Some background information
You may have noticed that sometimes people are referred as deaf (little d) and other times as Deaf (big D). This is done for a specific purpose. People that are deaf have partial or complete hearing loss. Deaf (big D) people are not just deaf by way of auditory definition, but culturally as well. They are usually born deaf. They don’t normally use their voice when they sign. Many of them may also choose not to use hearing aides, cochlear implants or any other sound enhancing devices, even if they may get hearing benefit from them. They instead choose to use sign language as their primary mode of communication. Through sign they utilize interpreters in order to communicate with the hearing world.
Most deaf people; whether big D or little d, do NOT like to be referred to as Hearing Impaired. Instead they want to be identified as Deaf or Hard of Hearing, depending on their degree of hearing loss.
I give you this brief history just to give you some background before answering the ASL verses English question. This topic can become very involved and very political and we at Signing Savvy are not wanting to lose our focus of being a sign language resource for all, so we choose normally not to get too involved in these kinds of debates.
ASL signs vs. English signs
ASL (American Sign Language) is a complete, unique language developed by deaf people, for deaf people and is used in it’s purest form by people who are Deaf. Being it’s own language, it not only has its own vocabulary, but also its own grammar that differs from English.
Signed Exact English is a system to communicate in English through signs and fingerspelling. Signed Exact English, in most cases, uses English grammar (that is, you are signing English). The vocabulary is a combination of ASL signs, modified ASL signs, or unique English signs.
The reason English signs often vary from ASL is to add clarity to the sign so that the exact English word meant for the conversation is understood. One example would be the sign for CAR. In ASL, the sign for CAR is two A hands gesturing like they are holding onto and moving a steering wheel. In ASL, this sign is used for any automobile you control with a steering wheel, including a car, truck, bus, van, etc. The English sign for CAR is two C hands, one on top of the other, moving away from each other. If you wanted to specify what type of car, the hand shape is
modified to include the initial of the type of vehicle (c for car, v for van, b for bus, j for jeep, etc.).
This is where the term “initialized sign” comes from. You clarify the meaning by initializing the sign with first letter of the intended English word. Therefore, using the English version allows one to specify exactly what is communicated in English. In ASL, you would just use the ASL sign for car and if it was important to clarify the type of vehicle, you would follow the sign with a fingerspelling of the vehicle type (JEEP, for example). This is just one example. There are many other examples.
Just as many ASL signs are used in Signed Exact English, members of the big D Deaf camp have accepted some English signs. However, some are still not accepted, and if you use them in your everyday signing, could be frowned upon by the Deaf. It is best to watch and ask if you are in doubt.
What type of signs does Signing Savvy include?
Since Signing Savvy is first and foremost a dictionary, we have decided to include the most common variations (both ASL and English) on the site so that you see that they do exist. Since ASL is the preferred language of the Deaf community, the ASL sign is almost always listed as the first version unless the word does not have an ASL sign for it. To determine if the sign is ASL or English, look below the video to see the sign type (available on most signs). If you are a registered user or full member, the sign description tells you if it is an initialized sign. Remember that most of the time if the sign is an initialized sign, then it falls under that English category.
