Best books/medium for signing

[slowburner]

Hi

My DD has great comprehension but no clear speech as yet - I am flatly refusing to get worried as she is only 15 months and I didn't speak until , and not speak clearly until 3 years old. maybe I should worry but quite honestly I have more to worry about first. Her comprehension is described by nursery as advanced so the gap between understanding and being able to tell us what she wants is widening and frustrating her.

Pure and simple its causing issues, it is clear that not being able to tell us or nursery what she wants is causing a great deal of screaming and upset so I have decided to become more intensive on signing. At the moment she signs milk (although this can become 'I'm hungry'), star, for twinkle twinkle, she also runs about with a star shaped cookie cutter doing the star sign, and duck. Quack. Not hugely helpful but evident that she can pick them up - all 3 signs are very similar but also subtley different teh way she does them. I am quite interested to see if she will pick up two handed signs as we have a hemi dx (which I'm fighting) but she can clap and happily passes from hand to hand, and also rubs her hands together in messy play. So keen to encourage that.

Have found www.little-linguist.co.uk/baby-sign-langage-bsl-for-children.html good list of materials, I'd like a book we can use at home and she can take with her to nursery who are also finding she wants to communicate. I was also thinking some sort of poster would also be useful to remind us. Any suggestions?

Those of you who have used BSL/Makaton have you found its quickly picked up? Friends keep posting that their children have x number of signs at 9 months old, DD showed no interest in signs until 2 weeks ago despite me signing since 8 months to her. I really want her to learn useful signs, but struggle to get other to do them as well due to them not knowing what we are working on, if I say mummy DD slaps me on the forehead (sweet but ouch), not entuirely sure how to get her to realise she needs to tap her own head!

Thanks in advance.

Sorry - advanced is not meant to be in bold! Not sure how I did that.

You could try forest books they have just about everything sign related and a few freebies but it's also worth having a google as there are plenty of freebies out there. There's a few sites worth looking at, cbeebies has a section somewhere, mobile sign, signed stories, a few more and learn a sign a day.

Makaton is the way to go SB
This is a lot more basic than BSL and is used for children with speech and language difficulties as opposed to BSL which is for the deaf community and can be a lot more involved.
Once they learnt the word they drop the sign so no danger of them becoming too reliant on it as long as they do eventually speak.
it was a life saver for me especially with my eldest son who had no speech til about 3 and then very limited to Mumma etc.
He had his own version of it (e.g he banged the inside of his elbow for biscuit instead of tapping the outside) but once I learned the signs i began to understand him and vice versa.

Makaton is used in 40 odd countries and was designed by somebody called margaret walker along with two others called Tony and Katie (hence the name: Ma- Ka-Ton, the first letters of their names)
You can buy simple books with pictures and diagrams in for the basic things kids need, like food, toilet (very important haha), colours etc.
Try some of the sign language sites. The books might not be cheap- I paid about £6 each about 10 years ago and lent them to a friend, never got them back!) but they're worth it.

Also Justin Fletcher (Mr Tumble) uses Makaton in his programme on cbeebies so you could watch that together with your daughter.

I will go investigate - the reason I thought BSL/Babysign is that nursery already use BSL with a profoundly deaf child and two of the nursery workers are pretty good at the basic signing.

Also can I confess to being scared of Mr Tumble?

thank you for posting

Aw how can u be scared of Mr Tumble, he's amazing! I love the way he is with the disabled kids on his show, so natural. But the Makaton is very effective; a lot of kids with no problems pick it up too which is brilliant.
I'd ask the nursery staff if they can get you some info; handouts or basic signing books maybe?

there's not a great difference between makaton and bsl used at the early stages, most of the signs are the same either way. The important thing is that you speak as you sign.

no, mr tumble is great one of dd3's favourites.

ninja is right IMO difference between the signs used in makaton and BSL signs, is not so great, (hi ninja! sign waves) pure BSL has it's own grammar and other special features, it is not used with speech, (Because of the different word order).

Unpa1d is right about the back ground of Makaton (hi unpa!d sign waves) some of the signs used have been simplified to enable them to be used by people who have difficulty with fine motor skills, there is also no regionality with makaton, (BSL varies around the country, like a regional accent, IYSWIM.) Makaton was designed to be used with speech and with symbols as well, all three backing eachother up.

It is possible to use BSL signs along with speech, ie english word order etc which is SSE. (signed supported english). We hoped my ds would speak enventually (which he does now, ) and he has no dexterity issues, and we also have some Deaf friends, so we used/use SSE, (BSL signs and speech with him.) I would agree Forest Books is fabby, for BSL and Makaton resources, if your dd is already in a setting were signing is used this is a real asset. PS ds was slow to start producing signs, he absorbed for a while, then he flew.

Good luck!

Thank you everyone, I really appreciate the input. I came into work today and have spent the entire day a)missing my DD and b)researching things for her on the internet rather than working.

I will pluck up the courage to watch MrTumble, and I will speak to nursery before I order anything, until recently their SENCO was in DD's room so she knows her quite well.

The downside of todays research through is the new concern that as DD has a poss dx of RH hemi this may affect her speech as the LH side of the brain is affected. Oh balls . I am going to pack up, go home to my DD, DH, a warm bath and a hot .

For the last issue you described (her hitting your head instead of her own - very common at her age!), I would recommend a DVD with kids signing, like http://www.little-linguist.co.uk/baby-sign-langage-bsl-for-children/small-talk-baby-sign-dvd.html Small Talk. The Little Linguist site also has a great BSL poster set for kids - which can also be used as placemats.

{{http://www.deafbooks.co.uk/Let-s-Sign-Early-Years-BSL-Child-and-Carer-Guide-AIC5A-aspx Let's Sign Early Years]] would likely be a useful resource for you as well. It's designed for the issues that you have described.

Going against the grain, but - especially as you already have nursery workers who use BSL - I prefer BSL to Makaton. I've taught the early year stages BSL without issue or compromising of verbal language and it is a great language.

That's really interesting notjustkangaskhan can you tell me more... D/deaf or hearing kids or a mix of both?

I am really interested, (I have BSL stage two, and am very comfy with using BSL with Deaf friends, and service users (i am ex social worker with D/deaf people) and using SSE {BSL signs but with speech} with my hearing but ASD and LD son and the kids in his class, I also have used Makaton with children with complex needs ) You were teaching BSL (ie no speech, BSL grammar, NMF etc?) what were you getting back from the kids? signs, speech and signs?

I know round here the focus is on bi-lingualism for Deaf kids, BSL and spoken english, but for use with hearing kids it tends to be more SSE. Is it different in your area?

My mix were all hearing children, with over half having some form of verbal communication problem (from just delayed speech through to auditory processing disorders and 'mild' learning disorders). This is because we are one of the few areas left in the UK with a Deaf school and college which offers great provision for them as well as good special schools for those with more complex needs who would likely gain more out of Makaton or SSE, so we got the 'milder' cases (never seems mild to the parents or the individual which is why I put it in quotes) as well as children with no hearing or speaking problems.

Speech never seemed hindered, which is a concern for a lot of parents. Basic BSL grammar, body and facial language, signs were very good for their age group. Most of the particularly younger kids preferred to talk while signing and spoke with age appropriate English grammar while using BSL grammar for the signs, which obviously caused them to drop most of the NMF, but they were still mostly understandable.

My area is different, I think due to the Deaf school and college which means we have a larger BSL-using community than most areas which has enabled more community facilities (BSL practice groups open to all, recently got provisions to allow kids over the age of 10 to gain BSL qualifications outside of school, quite active in getting BSL as a GCSE and encouraging it in mainstream schools) that support if not bi-lingualism (which is ideal many have here, if considered impractical) then a solid basic grounding in BSL for hearing children to allow better communication and better facilities for all. Makaton and SSE are more seen as useful tool for those with particular needs, while BSL is a living language to be encouraged as any other community language as well as a language useful for jobs and business.

If you go down the Makaton route, the Makaton website is a great place to begin. www.makaton.org/
If you look in the online shop under Teach yourself Makaton there's some great little books for £6.50. The First Little Signs book (under the early years section www.makaton.org/khxc/gbu0-catshow/early-first-signs.html) is one of a set of fab picture books which my two love. They have all the basics to get you started. Amazon sell them. I wouldn't bother with the nursery rhyme set but the ones about eating and outings etc are very good. We like sitting around the books and trying the signs.
There's also some free nursery rhymes etc to download which would give you the basic signs for animals etc.
Finally, put an order in at your local library for the "Core Vocabulary" book and have a go at home!
I have to say that with children with reasonable understanding I usually start the "bribe" way. I line up several favourite foods eg crisps, sweets, cake, biscuit and get them to sign for them!! It's amazing how fast some of the children have learnt!
Good luck - signing is a great way to support speech development.

www.makaton.org/
www.makaton.org/khxc/gbu0-catshow/early-first-signs.html

tiggywunkle I tried to teach 'more' using raisins tonight after dinner, backfired slightly in that clearly DD ate too many, ended up with wind and I've spent most of the evening settling her! I decided that I'd start to teach her the signs that are most useful and reduce frustration for her, I signed more, then formed the sign using her hands, then repeated the sign and gave her the raisin. Repeated about fifteen time at which point she smiled, burped and promptly SAID what distinctly sounded like more.

Thank you everyone for your input, it is much appreciated.

We started off with the signs for biscuit and more. Katie first signed when I refused to give her a biscuit until she signed biscuit. This was after 3 weeks of me signing like a crazy thing whiles he just watched in amusement. More is a hugely useful sign and can be used with pointing, so more milk, more biscuit, more telly etc. We've then just introduced signs as they've been useful and now, a couple of months later she has around 30 signs or so. Mr Tumble is great as is the Something special magazine.

sassyfrassy that sounds like my DD, watches mummy be silly while quietly enjoying the tomfoolery, oh and biscuit driven definately! Can I ask how old Katie was when you started teaching her? Thank you

We have been doing Makaton with ds for the last few months. He is 16 months old and has just started doing the sign for 'more', although he hasn't got great fine motor skills, so it is more a placing together of the hands he doesn't make any sounds when he does it, but hopefully that will come. We were bowled over when he did it, as the only sounds he makes are squeals and shrieks, and apart from waving he hasn't really communicated in a definite way. At the same time as signing 'more' he has also started to do a comedy 'wha' happened!' shrug, when he drops something on the floor!

We have a couple of sheets of basic signs that someone printed out for us, and we really only use a few, but over and over again, always saying the word clearly to him when we sign. We also get his sisters (4 and 5) to sign the same signs to him - they are much better at learning it than us! I second the Mr Tumble recommendation, ds will sit on the sofa with the girls and watch it whilst they practice the signs. It is also useful to watch when ds is up in the middle of the night!

I'd be happy to copy the sheets we have and send them to you if you pm me.

Slowburner, we started in June, so just two months before she turned three. Insisting on sign before getting biscuit was definately the breakthrough and she very quickly picks up any sign for stuff she wants such as chocolate, sweets and juice.