Sign and Say

Recently I made a connection with a wonderful family who was in need of ASL training. They wanted to learn sign to help facilitate better communication with a family member. I geared up my hands and started to plan lessons on teaching the fundamental signs for ASL. American Sign Language can look extremely difficult at a glance but once you sit down and understand more. You learn the reason for signs they make a lot of sense because it is a very contextual. I was very excited to teach sign again as I have a vocabulary of 700 signs. In the past I trained with my non-verbal student to sign as it was his primary mode of communication. I am a firm believer that sign language not only enhances regular speech but it helps prompt children to be active in communication. My student of 4 years was such an endearing young boy who was in a tough place when I started but as his sign vocabulary increased I saw frustration melt away. We even had some small conversation at times and I felt that we broke through his autism. If you don't have a word for something you need/feel you can feel trapped. To reduce this I used his sign to create a signing schedule of when things would happen. Knowing when something would change ahead of time helps to alleviate stress and behaviors. When problem behaviors happen we have to ask the question WHY? In this case it was due to a communication break down. That is why when starting up ABA programs I always focus on the key concept that Language Acquisition must happen first. I hear people's concerns that they think sign language stops speech from occurring because you focus on sign. The truth is this is NOT true. Just as learn with the correct methods. You need to pair the sign with a verbal response by doing this they help each other. The sign can act as a verbal prompt. If you have a cookie and you hold it up and your child signs cookie and you give it them then they will only use sign. You must teach with it as a pair that you require both and if done correctly you will have a child who signs and makes verbal approximations. Stay posted for my free sign language videos.