Sign Language used to be thought of as something only of use to the profoundly Deaf and their families, but for more than 25 years Speech and Language professionals have been using ASL signs to help hearing children communicate with their parents. Babies and children who use sign are able to communicate more completely and at a younger age than their peers who don't. As Rachel Coleman, creator of Signing Time, says: "Babies crawl before they walk and sign before they talk!"
As the child of a Speech Pathologist, I was one of those kids who learned sign before I could speak back in the 80s. When my mother came into the room to find me crying in my crib, at 7 months I could tell her if I was hungry, or needed a new diaper, and it greatly lessened her frustration as a new parent. When I began speaking at 9 months, she kept using signs with me because it let me communicate with her if I was overtaken by a shy spell (I could tell her I needed a change in a grocery store without letting everyone else know) or had my mouth full.
When I had my children, signing with them seemed the most natural thing in the world, and since both of my children have special needs and are speech-delayed, it has been a blessing to be able to communicate with them. Imagine my joy when my son could talk to me, even with tubes down his throat at the hospital! While our doctors were not sure my son would ever really speak, he's learned four or five spoken words...all words he first learned as signs!
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