Saturday, April 30, 2016
You're teaching him what?!
Recently Ryker and I were at the library while the kids were at school and I had asked him something and he signed his answer. This confused some people who were looking on and one mom commented on how bad it is to teach your kids sign language as opposed to actual words. If only she knew why my little guy signing was so important to me. When I realized Ryker had a speech delay I also realized he still needed to communicate somehow and looked for ways to teach kids sign language. I was able to find a really cute TV show called "Signing Time" which teaches basic signs that kids use everyday and also says the word verbally so it was pretty helpful in getting him to know what sign was what. Since starting this about a month ago Ryker has learned about 20 signs and is starting to say words to go with them. Even if he wasn't behind verbally I would still push sign language on him, it's something I've always wanted to learn and never had the chance to do so and it put a barrier between my deaf family members and myself. Learning signs will allow him to communicate with so many other people as well and besides that it's been proven kids who sign do better in school, not exactly my goal right now but it's a valid point. I'm hoping and praying that he continues to sign as well as he does and that the verbal words slowly but surely come along with it. This journey to get him to talk is going to be a long one and signing is going to make it a lot easier for all of us.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
That mother was giving you outdated information, it's the same logic from 30 years ago when people thought teaching kids to be bilingual was bad just because it took them longer to master two languages than it took their peers to master the! We all know now of course that teaching a baby two languages is great for them. It's the same with sign language, in fact to this day some pediatricians still tell parents of deaf/mute/speech del kids not to teach them sign because then they'll never want to learn a verbal language. First of all if a child is dead they should not be forced to learn a language they can't even hear. Secondly, sign language has shown to be beneficial to all babies (even hearing/speaking babies) because infants can "say" their first sign by 9 months but can't say their first word until 12 months (on average). So the babies who learned sign language had a three month headstart on their verbal language only peers in communicating with their caregivers. This lead those infants to be less frustrated, it helped them learn faster, they generally could self soothe earlier, and just like with learning two verbal languages, learning sign language plus English made it easier to understand other languages, language in general, and to pick up on nonverbal cues faster.
ReplyDeleteSo really teaching your kid(s) sign language is one of the best things you can do for them. Kudos to you keep on going!!