LATEST NEWS! This brief clip discusses the use of American Sign Language with your little one, presented by Sign2Me colleague.

Supporting Research of signing with babies

Our inspiration for teaching a Parent&Me signing class format came from early desires to simultaneously teach our son American Sign Language (ASL) as his visual language and English as his verbal language while also socializing him with other signing babies. Since no such format existed in the Long Beach area when we started signing with him, we created his own baby-friendly class. To get to that point, we took classes with Monta Briante, famous signing for babies instructor in San Diego; we were hooked on Signing Time long before it became a PBS show; we became certified to teach babies and toddlers sign language; we enroll in college ASL classes every semester so that we continue to grow in both language and culture since it is our son's first language. We also wanted to make sure that the vocabulary we use in our class was ASL versus made up signs; learning about Deaf culture is also extremely important to us.

What is sign language?
American Sign Language (ASL) is the official language of our Deaf community, a beautiful one rich in language and culture. ASL is a visual language, focusing on the use of facial expressions, hands, and body to communicate. ASL has grammatical structures like all languages. The same messages expressed in verbal language can be expressed in ASL. In fact, at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., the official language to teach classes is ASL. Researchers in the 70's found positive impacts in teaching hearing babies sign language and verbal English simultaneously.

For consumers, confusion arose at this same time because certain research developed products that used 'made-up' signs by non-members of the Deaf community. Many products are out there -- make sure it states that the signs are American Sign Language vocabulary. If it doesn't state American Sign Language (ASL), then you may be purchasing a product of made-up signs. In fact, this was another huge motivation for us to start teaching baby classes using ASL because competitive products and classes that didn't use ASL existed; we want to respect the Deaf community and use ASL -- not made up signs. And, we wanted to educate the hearing population regarding these differences. In our classes, we focus on the vocabulary needed for the early stage of life. These are one-word, two-word combinations. Words for needs (eg milk, food), words for wants (eg ball, animal), words for feelings (eg sad, happy) are examples of the 100 words you learn in our playtime part 1 class during the month. Part 2 classes are geared for toddlers-preschooler pace. If you want to continue growing in your ASL experience, we recommend our Long Beach Parks & Rec classes taught for adults by Patti Kolpa; these classes are typically taught on Thursday nights. There you will learn ASL syntax, more complex conversations -- tell her we sent you and we send her big hugs!

When should one start signing with little ones?
Different experts will give different start times -- some say 10-12 months, some say 6-9 months, some say 3 months, some say from birth on. Over the years, these time frames have become younger and younger as experts learn that babies are much smarter than they thought! We've found that it really is a parent decision when you want to start exposing your little one to sign language vocabulary simultaneously with verbal English. Starting early gives parents a head start learning the vocabulary. We were infertile for so long that we did not want to wait to communicate with our baby once he was born, so we started signing, reading, speaking with him right away. We did both sign and verbal English at the same time. We wanted as much bonding time as possible. In the early stages, we knew that signing would help him first to receptively and visually gain language; eventually he would be able to express himself both in sign and verbal English. We saw signing as empowering our little one to express his needs, his wants, his personality, his talents. An added bonus was that our baby was a light sleeper, so signing for us was a way for Mommy & Daddy to communicate while baby stayed asleep. It also gave us a chance to grow in our sign language experience as a couple -- so often in our day we speak but don't look at each other. Signing gives us the time to look at one another to examine the additional communication that our facial expressions allow. Like any language, it is a life-long process and it is one we love!




Learning Stages For Babies
Our littlest ones goes through different stages while being exposed to sign language (or learning any language really). At first, they are entertained and love your eye contact, intimacy, motions, sound of your voice. The next stage they start to realize this contact has additional meaning: they understand and smile or laugh when you sign and say, for example, "Ahh! You want milk!" Then, in their own time, they will use the signs and verbal attempts that have the most meaning for them. It could be more, milk, food. In our case, it was 'cold', anticipating the cold diaper wipe on his bottom. Milk and more followed close by, then it was his favorite animal friends like cat, dog, fish, bear, monkey. And, through these animals and pretend play he learned to use over 150 signs by the time he was 18 months old.

Will Signing negatively affect my child's verbal skills?
Over 40 years ago, researchers who were naysayers of sign gave 'expert' opinions regarding the use of sign with babies. They said sign would negatively affect the verbal abilities of babies. They were afraid of the unknown, really. So, they collected data for their research and found...the opposite! These researchers found that typically developing babies who also learned sign spoke earlier, had larger vocabularies earlier, were less frustrated at the age 2-3 range. Since then, all of the research that exists on signing with babies has remained positive. Not a single negative research article exists. Institutions ranging from UC Berkeley to Dartmouth to UC Davis to Penn State to Gallaudet are homes to many research articles and dissertations on the benefits of signing with babies and children. Feel free to point family, friends, and health professionals in the direction of these peer-reviewed, journal articles. (For specifics, visit www.sign2me.com or www.marilyndaniels.com or google baby sign research UCB, or baby sign researcher -- to name a few!)

Like the research, we have also experienced first hand that typically developing children who sign are very verbal; and for the little ones who later were diagnosed with challenges such as autism, dyslexia, dysarthria, apraxia, cerebral palsy, to name a few, were on par with verbal children in terms of 'language development'. None of these diagnosis are made at birth and none of these children expected these diagnosis later in life. But, these children who grew up with sign have lots of language -- a beautiful language -- to communicate with and show how smart they are. And, it is never too early or too late to learn this beautiful language and culture.

Other exciting facts? American Sign Language is the first language of 9.6% of our U.S. population; ASL is now accepted as a university and high school language requirement just as other languages such as Spanish and French are accepted; a weekly PBS show, Signing Time, is the hottest children's show; the 2008 Superbowl showed 2 Deaf commercials and has for the second year in a row included a signed interpretation of the National Anthem; longitudinal studies of children who grew up signing show increases in IQ scores, literacy, and storytelling skills at the middle school age...the list is endless.

Baby Signing Classes in the Long Beach Area

Long Beach Parks, Recreation & Marine
El Dorado West Building
2800 Studebaker
Long Beach, CA 90815
www.lbparks.org (under Pre-School)
Summer 2008

Saturday mornings
9am class part 1
10am class part 2

What is the difference between part 1 and part 2? Part 1 is designed for the youngest of babies through crawling; Part 2 is designed for the movers and shakers. More vocabulary is taught in the part 2 class; it is taught at a pace geared toward the toddler-preschooler. Ultimately we focus on teaching the parent/caregiver and exposing the child to ASL by increasing his/her receptive language skills. We sing, dance, play all throughout the class; babies are free crawl around and enjoy the family learning experience. These classes are seed-planters -- we help you get started, offer you a location where you can have fun signing with your baby, feel comfortable, and offer you resources and suggest other classes (like Patti Kolpa's! LB Parks class, LBCC and CSULB classes, parent classes, etc) so that you can grow in your communication with your child. For newbies, we are a starting point. For the seasoned, we are a location where your child will sing and play in a group environment while reinforce receptive language that will positively affect expressive language.

Feel free to also stop in and register at the location. You can also feel free to take either of the classes as often as you like in order to stay consistent with your signing in a supportive, easy to learn and fun environment. Feel free to also bring family members.

Your little one is never to young to come, and never too old to be exposed to ASL or attend our classes. We currently have babies, toddlers, pre-schoolers, and elementary age students coming to class to learn American Sign Language vocabulary that is common to the early ages, taught in a fun and easy to learn format. Grandparents, family members and friends are welcomed. Feel free to come and register at class, making checks payable to Long Beach Parks, Recreation & Marine. Classes are 4 weeks in duration, $40/month
Sign and Stride
Since Spring of 2006, we've been hosting Sign and Stride events that let moms get in shape while learning how to sign.

Please contact us at (707) 695-4400 for upcoming events, schedules, information.


More Benefits
Signing with young ones has so many positive benefits. To learn more, visit www.sign2me.com, where we are certified members of a large group of educators, physical therapists, speech therapists, medical personnel, and other professionals who are aware of the language, cognitive, social, physical and emotional gains children have in knowing American Sign Language.

At Signing Playtime, our overall goal is to build a community of baby signers by providing: