Pick your brains, when you have a min...

[signandsay]

All you experienced 'research hounds' out there can you point me to any research about signing and ASD,

I keep being told there is loads to say it does not work/ is not good for ASD kids, but it works great for my ds, (duck to water etc)

It has revolutionised our lives, he has so much more comunication, is really interacting with us now.

I may be unusual being fluent, but he can't be unique can he? (I know they all are, but you know what I mean)

Any pointers for use with the 'we know best' professionals would be helpful...

Don't know about general feeling but certainly in where I work we have been told to use Makaton with children with language delay for whatever reason. The LEA I work for runs makaton courses for all early years workers and the area senco tells us to use it with the suspected ASD children too. We find it great and all the childrn love it.
So long as you emember to Say every word while you are signing IME it can only benefit communication.

Didn't work for us at all either. If he wasn't gonna get his head round making sounds to communicate he wasn't gonna sign.

Glad it's working for you!!

List here

What rubbish! Like all these things it doesn't work with all children, but for some it is just the ticket.

What do they say IS good for kids with ASD then?

What is 'politically' behind this nonsense? Are they pushing him into a placement full of visuals? Are they worried you'll expect all staff in a mainstream placement to have completed training in signing?

There is always a 'reason' for these bold claims......

Maybe someone can advise me. DD's IEP is full of targets for her to use cards to ask for help/to go to the toilet/show that she is stressed.

DD has a speech and language disorder, as well as communication difficulties due to ASD, and I am very unhappy on the over reliance on these visual cards.

They do not address her underlying communication problems, which is that she does not think to ask for help.

I feel that better targets would be for her to just ask, without the use of cards. We have the ridiculous situation of her being told to use the cards, when she asks for help without them!

How do I broach this tactfully with the school, who have been great with DD, but lack ASD experience so go for a one size fits all approach.

Hi star yeah it's all the school, what's interesting is the SLT is fully behind us, she is ASD SLT (linked part time to local ASD SN school)and says although she has never come across a child like ds with such a gap between his verbal and manual langauge, (6 words, 250 signs) it clearly works for him, and that is what is important.

indeed2 thanks for that, we always speak when signing and also verbalise hi8s signed responses.

he is, at 4, trying out the ocassional new word, which he gets lots of encouragement for, so we are hoping more speech comes... but all the (sensible) professionals have said that with his level of LD as well, it is likely that he will use signing to some degree or another for life...

Think it's just school not wanting him, (well HT actually) did post some in the friday night thread..

Anyway can do better than that for him, Sod em!

lougle brill thanks, will peruse at leisure, (what am I saying?? what is this concept "leisure"?? )

Hi sign - I was wondering if you could help me? My ds has until now shown no interest in the tv until recently when I had the programme Something Special on Cbeebies and he was engrossed!!! I would be really keen to try some sign with him. I was wondering how you learnt? I've been on the Makaton site and seen the beginner pack but before I went ahead and got it I would be keen to hear from anyone successfully using sign and how they learnt?
Thanks in advance.

Hi Sport, there are lots of people on here with lots of experience and good advice, so it might be worth posting a thread to ask about it, (as you may get more responses then.)

I am a bit of an odd case in that I learned my signing for work and social reasons, (spent a few years as a SW with D/deaf people and also got some Deaf friends, so I already had BSL, and had done some training to teach Makaton too.)

This is only my opinion... but I would say would be worth finding a course if there is one nearby, some LA's run them, it is also worth finding if your LA use Makaton in Education, (as here in Swindon they use Signalong, another signing system and so run courses to train parents in that) there is lots of overlap between signing systems/languages, so that might be useful to know too...

I have found lots of resources available to buy at Forest Bookshop, Not sure of address but you can google it. Lots of different resources available. Maybe also worth talking to Ed/social services as they may have resources you can borrow? Also a small degree is downloadable free from the internet too.

If you decide to post new thread I will nip back here and transfer this info to there, so that others can comment/correct/develop these points.

Good luck!

TT Wife, I have had the exact same problem with ds' school, though 'touch wood' it seems to be better this year as I have not heard the 'c' word as often. I think it is right to want to be tactful and polite but also make it clear that you do not use the cards at home as you do not need them. Tell them what happens at home and ask for advice on how to move her verbal communication/asking on. Also ask for the IEP to be changed to reflect this - ie try to make them feel it is partly their idea.

A variation on signing is Flash Cards with messages on them. Colour coded messages can also help. Like Traffic Lights Red, Amber Green.

Both my dd's sign (AS and ASD) but TBH dd2 never showed any interest at nursery when they tried signing with her, she prefered PEC's. Now both dd's are in a class at school with a deaf boy they have both picked up on the signing and sign a lot.

At DS2's most recent language and communication appointment, the signing used on Something Special was recommended to reinforce what we are saying to him, as often he has difficulty focusing on verbal instructions. She felt the visual reinforcement would help him. So now we need to speak to the SENco and the teachers about it and request that they start that as well. The school has been pretty good about making adjustments, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem (I hope!).

Remains to be seen how he'll do with it, though.

Good point Willow - we don't use cards at home!

Also like the idea of making it seem like they thought of it

Hi Marne really interested to hear more about how your ds's got on with signing.. it is so nice to hear about others it has worked for too, how verbal are your d's?