Several years ago Brett was studying to be an American Sign Language interpreter, and while he was in school he taught me a lot of sign language and we would practice together. Eventually I took some classes and was encouraged to become an interpreter myself, but I had already been through 5 years of higher education to obtain my Bachelor's degree and I wasn't really looking for a career change. It was much more of a hobby for me. As Brett progressed through the program it became apparent that an old injury made it very difficult for him to sign at the speed and duration required for an interpreter. After much thoughtful contemplation he decided he would have to withdraw from the program and instead he became an automotive technician.
Signing with Corinne has come naturally for us and we started implementing a few signs pretty early on in her life. One of her first signs was "bottle" and we've branched out from there as her world expands and her experiences change. She currently has a repertoire of about 15-20 signs, some of the more commonly used are food, drink, more, dog, bath, no, yes, help, hat & shoes. I imagine that as the weather gets warmer she will lose the sign for hat, just as she has essentially lost the sign for bottle since she drinks from a sippy cup during the day and only uses a bottle first thing in the morning and right before bed.
As she becomes more verbal she will probably lose the sign for the words she can say. This is sort of happening right now with “dog” – she knows the sign, but she has recently learned how to say “arf!” and so most of the time when she sees a dog she will verbalize with her word instead of with her sign. Interestingly enough, this is really her first crossover word. She has words for other things in her environment and uses them consistently and correctly. Some of her words include diaper, beads, teeth, ball, up and daddy. You’ll notice that she doesn’t have a sign or a word for mama and, for now, I’m not holding it against her.
I think that having some signs and some words really helps her get her point across, she has a way to communicate and really tries to make us understand instead of immediately getting frustrated and having a melt-down. Now, don’t get me wrong; she’s 1 and so there are plenty of temper tantrums, grunting, whining going on in our house…but I feel like we are giving her some tools to work with so that she doesn’t have to be completely dependent upon us to interpret her needs and wants.
How did you teach Corinne signs? Did you just sign everything you said or did you try to concentrate on one or two signs at a time? I'm trying to do "all done!" and "milk" right now with Ramona. She's still too little to do it, but I'm trying to help her understand the concept now so when she has the coordination she already knows what to do. Did you start with Corinne from birth or wait until she was older? And how old was she when she started signing? (Sorry I'm writing a novel here, but I'm really interested in baby signing!)
ReplyDelete