Why don't ALL children have compulsory sign language workshops at school?

[swiperfox]

Please don't let this turn into a horrid thread - it's just something me and dp were talking about the other day after reading the threads about Something Special.

I personally think it would be a fantastic thing for children to learn. My Mum's cousin is profoundly deaf due to her mum having chickenpox when she was pg so I grew up knowing the alphabet and have never forgotten it and it's amazing how useful it has been to me ever since.

It's so easy to learn the basics, especially at a young age and would encourage children to learn about and accept children with special/other needs and would probably make the world a nicer place for those who need to use sign language, knowing that they aren't going to be confronted with people looking at them like they're stupid because they can't understand them.

I think it's best to getr them earlier than this - pre-talking stage when all chidren will actually use it to achieve what they want. Surely this is the ideal grounding?

As a salt (and a mother!) couldn't agree more!
All children love it and will benefit from it enormously. I've just run a series of singing/signing workshops for 6-18 month olds and the response was fantastic (from parents and children.)

Agree,needs to be started early.

I totally agree - we seemed to spend an awful lot of time playing the recorder when I was at primary school, lovely in its way, but there was certainly time to learn something like this. I taught myself the deaf alphabet from an encyclopaedia when I was about 10 and I still remember it now.

ds1's (now ds2's) nursery has taught Makaton before. Makaton nursery rhymes etc. I'm not sure that learning Makaton would be that useful from a communicating with the deaf pov as BSL is quite different (the word order is different for example). Agree that it would help change attitudes etc and also that it might create more interest in sign language itself. A lot of special schools are switching more over to PECS and visual aids as well as sign now. For example when ds1's class go into the community (weekly) they use PECS to request food in cafes etc rather than sign (partly becuase it is more community friendly, but also because a number of children in the class- including ds1 don't seem to be able to learn sign).

I couldn't agree more. I have long thought that sign language and first aid are 2 life skills that should be on the curriculum.

Brilliant idea. Ds has it at his school as there is a deaf child in his class but not enough.

What are the differences between makaton and BSL? I didn't realise. Even so though - surely any form of signing would make communication possible between two people who might have otherwise ignored each other and had to live in different worlds

Brilliant idea. I went to college to do levels 1 and 2. Would have found it so much easier to learn when i was younger. Has been very useful.

Jimjams.when Ifirst started working in special schools 10 years ago,they found it very hard to get their heads 'round the idea of visual aids. God knows why-again,they are of massive benefit to everyone.

We've managed to incorporate them into everything. For example,getting a member of staff to hold up a key picture when a particular song is sung in assembly,to orient everyone,so that the children can 'get' that they're singing about a tree or a rainbow or whatever.
I'm working on the idea of a set of photos of school dinners that we can place on the refectory do,but not too sure about it in practice as they all look the same!

Ideally,there would be a two pronged approach-signing (I'd go for a simple augmentative system like Signalong or Makaton) and masses of visual aids,so that use could be monitored and in the case of particualr children,their needs assessed continuously and particularly beneficial systems refined and reinforced.

That would be my dream-a world where augmentative/alternative systems were reinforced.

(I've noticed that most NT kids love the nifty PECS system. It creates a lot of interest especially in the m/s schools that some of 'my' children attend. I've even made one or two for jealous brothers and sisiters!)

It depends who you are aiming to communicate with swiperfox. If it's with children/adults with learning difficulties then there are often more barriers to communication than whether or not you know sign langauge (for example this morning ds1 was looking at a flyer about a railway line and ds2 said "oh those trains look interesting ds1 can I have a look" and ds1 got down walked round and gave it to him- To say dh and I were absolutely flabbergasted is an understatement- I suspect anyone who knows him would be surprised he was capable of doing that. Obviously he has enough language to understand that but usually cannot access that ability. Point being people with learning difficulties using sign may not be able to use it freely outside very structured sessions.

Makaton sigsn are derived from BSL but they always acompany speech- they are designed to back up spoken langauge. BSL is a langauge in its own right. And the langauge may run in a different order. So for example if we say give that to me then BSL may siign something like me give that (although I know nothing about BSL- it's almost certainly something different.- that's just to make the point that BSL is not just spoken langauge translated in hand movements).

I don't think there's any problem with learning sign, and I think it can have some benefits and certianly make people more interested in finding out more. I just think its unlikely to lead to lots of free communication between the NT world and either the deaf community or the world of the learning disabled.

Hi everyone. New mumsnet member here! My daughter is 14 motnhs now and using signs based on bsl taught at tinytalk classes initially then just continued at home. I seem to remember someone at the class telling me that sign language was going to be on priomary school syllabuses by the time our kids were at school.Not sure of validity of this, but sounds like a fab idea.

Thanks for explaining that jimjams

No doubt it wouldn't lead to free communication but I think it would be a huge start in breaking down some barriers.

depends on the child though mizmiz dooesn't it. DS1's school has more or less binned makaton - although they do use it for reinforcement of ideas because they found that a lot of the children aren't even aware the signs are being made (they have quite a high proportion of autistic kids- and although some do use makaton successfully they are often the dodgiest group).

I'm going to be working next year with someone who was involved in setting up Makaton. I suggested to him it might be worth running a project seeing if it is possible to identify children who are likely/not l;ikely to benefit from Maktaon/PECS. at the moment you tend to be offered whichever your particualr SALT has been trained in- when it would be better to tailor to the child initially. I suspect ability to use Makaton depends on ability to imitate. I also suspect that children who cannot imitate may learn Makton more easily if they are physically prompted through the signs. (Apparently deaf children learning sign langauge learn earlier if physically prompted through the signs rather than left to imitate).

depends on the child though mizmiz dooesn't it. DS1's school has more or less binned makaton - although they do use it for reinforcement of ideas because they found that a lot of the children aren't even aware the signs are being made (they have quite a high proportion of autistic kids- and although some do use makaton successfully they are often the dodgiest group).

I'm going to be working next year with someone who was involved in setting up Makaton. I suggested to him it might be worth running a project seeing if it is possible to identify children who are likely/not l;ikely to benefit from Maktaon/PECS. at the moment you tend to be offered whichever your particualr SALT has been trained in- when it would be better to tailor to the child initially. I suspect ability to use Makaton depends on ability to imitate. I also suspect that children who cannot imitate may learn Makton more easily if they are physically prompted through the signs. (Apparently deaf children learning sign langauge learn earlier if physically prompted through the signs rather than left to imitate).

depends on the child though mizmiz dooesn't it. DS1's school has more or less binned makaton - although they do use it for reinforcement of ideas because they found that a lot of the children aren't even aware the signs are being made (they have quite a high proportion of autistic kids- and although some do use makaton successfully they are often the dodgiest group).

I'm going to be working next year with someone who was involved in setting up Makaton. I suggested to him it might be worth running a project seeing if it is possible to identify children who are likely/not l;ikely to benefit from Maktaon/PECS. at the moment you tend to be offered whichever your particualr SALT has been trained in- when it would be better to tailor to the child initially. I suspect ability to use Makaton depends on ability to imitate. I also suspect that children who cannot imitate may learn Makton more easily if they are physically prompted through the signs. (Apparently deaf children learning sign langauge learn earlier if physically prompted through the signs rather than left to imitate).

blimey- whoops.

Agree jj,about salt training which isn't good. I am acase in point I suppose.Really believe in PECS and get into many 'discussions' with a colleague who is really into Makaton,which I have some reservations about. Think it's too 'precious' and also not convinced about use with children with Autism.
(Although must add that as use has been sloppy and irregular in schools I work in,its hard to make a fair comparison.)

I go for asimpler more generic signing system myself, but PECS and visual aids are what really interest me.
(My comm. impaired dd loves flicking through her visual calendar.I can see that it really allows her access to reflection on past activities and rumination on future ones,which her present level of language doesn't allow. I can dive in as necessary,and initiate a conversation on points of interest which at present are a vomiting episode and a bee stinging her,both in the past two weeks!)

Does makaton involve any sort of alphabet as with BSL or is it purely signs that go alongside words?

depends which barriers though swiperfox. I think it would do a lot to make peolpe think about other communities, and would do a lot to give an interest, but I really don't think it would do much in the way of actual communication between groups. A willingness to learn BSL would do a lot to improve deaf/hearing community communication but to make it meaningful someone would have to know a lot more than Makaton. And communicating with the learning disabled just requires a lot more than Makaton signing (although granted it would be useful if someone was standing in front of you frantically signing toilet to kno what they wanted).

The royal college of speech and lanaguge therapists is (a bit suprisingly imo) a little bit anti hearing babies being taught sign. Not sure why as I can't really see why it would harm (other than more pressure for parents?) The Makaton vocabulary development project are introducing a sign for babies workshop next year.

Incidentally I do use sign with ds3 but mainly because he is at a very high risk of a speech and or language/communication disorder. So I'm not anti sign at all.

Makaton users are often taught the alphabet as well. But probably more to reinforce spelling (remember many makaton users will not be able to read and/or write, and almost certianly not fluently if they can at all).

mizmiz I tend to agree. I think Makaton can be very very useful. I have seen it kick start speech for example and of course it is portable (no bloody velcro). I also think it is useful for an adult/carer to use to back up speech (am thinking of doing the distance training- but oh my- pricey). I'm just not convinced by its use for a large subset of the learning disabled (and yes especially those with autism- although I do think it can be worth trying). PECS just gets around the langauge problems - you don't need any inate sense of language too use it iykwim. You just need to be rewarded and you can start requesting. And anyone in the big bad world can understand it.

I think they should as well, i think it would be great but I guess teaching all the teachers to sign is too big a job and too expensive???

to be honest this is fine in theory but schools have enough to do teaching the basics of reading and writing to young children. If they did have more time I'd like them to teach a second european language such as french. Nothing against sign language just a case of priorities.

I work as a BSL interpreter and teaching assistant to a deaf child in a SEN school.As a school we use a great deal of PECS as the majority of Severe ASD kids we have struggle with sign.

I started a signing club last term and was joined regularly by 15 kids out of the 18 it was offered to and 4 staff.i base these groups on signalong as it has a bigger vocab than Makaton and is without the difficult structure of BSL.

My children both sign not fluently but enough to have a basic conversation with the deaf child I support

Incidently something special is used in our nursery class for topic work.

Also last tern I observed the SALT at my school attempting to speak to the deaf child