Baby Sign Language Thread #4

[katie80]

I find it fascinating, thanks for explaining xo

Me too! Thanks for the great list of signs too, Katy. I know and used several with C, but will have to learn the others.

G's got 'all done', but only does it with one arm, so it looks like a wave. However, he does it on cue and says, a very cute 'uh du' so I'm pretty sure it's it. He claps when I do 'more', LOL, so not quite there yet.

B does the sign for star when he wants to sing too.

Cute! Star was one of C's favorites and ended up being her first full word at 15 mo. It was Christmas time. I kept waiting and waiting for mommy, but got star. 

[amayzie]

G's got 'all done', but only does it with one arm, so it looks like a wave.

He's clearly very international as our sign for 'finished' is a thumbs up shaking side to side- so could look like a wave when a little baby does that!

This is a webiste with nice videos of the australian signs- good for other ideas if you are stumped! (my advice- look up the rude signs- always appeals to my juvenile side!) http://www.auslan.org.au

[*Ali*]

Katy, you're such a silly billy

Our sign for finished is hand held one over the other with palms perpendicular to the ground and then move them outwards. So the waves look similar to me too.

Katie, cadan used to clap for more for ages. I don't think it matters if he is using it to me more but just not doing it correctly yet. It's like mispronouncing a word because they can't physically say it yet. In their heads they are saying and signing it correctly.

[katie80]

Wow, I didn't realize the signs were that different from language to language. Our sign for finished is both hands up and then you flip them out a couple times like you're pushing something away. 

Yes, Ali, I agree, will fully accept clapping, I'm just not sure it's meaningful for him yet, but it could be.  It's interesting, because Claire's signs were mostly very intentional and quite correct, but she's always been a fine motor kind of kid. Whereas Graham tends toward the gross motor side of things. He's moving and climbing on the anything he can and I don't remember her doing that.

[amayzie]

the signs you would use are generally based on the sign language of your country- and each country (or possibly group of countries) has their own sign language- it may have some signs similar- but they are different languages- can you see how that further makes life a little challenging and isolating for members of the deaf community!?. Usually for ease you use your local signs- then everyone is doing the same thing... BUT if you cant find a sign, or you think a sign from another country suits better then mixing it up is all good. I found the sign for milk here a pain- 2 handed- so hard to do while holding a baby- and literally looks like you are milking a cow! The fact that i still breastfeed and hamish actually only has small sips of cows milk i changed it to use the north american sign... still has a cow milking idea- but not as literal as ours...

[Chicane]

I mixed up all the languages because I wanted to always find the sign that was the easiest for DS to do...and we also made up some of our own

[katie80]

tcan you see how that further makes life a little challenging and isolating for members of the deaf community!?

Yes, totally! I knew I was using American Sign Language, I guess I just expected them to be more similar for that very reason, i.e. the deaf community.

Katy, funny about 'milk'. I only ever used it after C started having milk in a sippy cup and never with BFing, because I didn't want to feel like the cow that was being milked if she asked for it.

I mixed up all the languages because I wanted to always find the sign that was the easiest for DS to do...and we also made up some of our own

That's a great idea! We made up some of our own too.

[amayzie]

That's why i thought you might like to see the aussie website- more ideas...

[creations]

Hello all.  My first time on this thread

I'm qualified to BSL stage 2 and I've had some experience working with sign in my past but for my own reasons (logical to me) I chose not to teach DS much sign.
I have shown him signs for toilet, food, drink.  He uses toilet and food, has never signed drink, has developed a home sign for fruit and teething gel.
I have taught/encouraged the hand motions which go with nursery rhymes more than true signs (so he can join in with toddler group songs) although some are the same or similar anyway...so he has a few others but they aren't needed in everyday communication.

I'm finding recently he is signing food when he wants the toilet.  He's also signing food to ask for his art materials to do painting or colouring.  It's kind of pointless because to get art materials he just gets my attention and points to the cupboard where they are kept, and then I show him the various types and he picks the box he wants (paint sticks or wax crayons etc).  Is this something you've experienced with your own LOs that they sign anything just to communicate that they want something?
It isn't because he doesn't know the signs, for example he never signs food when we are in the bathroom he just signs toilet, so he does know it.

[anna*]

When Stan was little he had a 'universal' sign (index finger of one hand pointing into the palm of the other hand) which he used when he wanted to communicate something to us. He used it to sort of get our attention and then we'd have to try and figure out WHAT it was that he was trying to tell us/ask for.

[creations]

That's interesting Anna, thanks.
So DS is probably doing the same.  He can get everything he wants by just pointing so it's interesting that he chooses to sign food as well.

[amayzie]

Kids tend to generalise words too- like hamish has found the verbal word 'dad' (sounds like da) and uses it for 'dad', 'dad's drink', all drinks, all things that are dad's... anything that he fancies... - so i'd say the sign is the same thing. Part of learning about communicaton. So he may in his head have interpreted the sign for 'food' as 'i want this' IYKWIM.. so he uses it for any thing he wants? To him he probably uses it to mean any food- so why not for art materials as well!

Cool on the BSL thing- I wonder how many of the BSL signs are similar to the auslan ones...

[creations]

Kids tend to generalise words too

Good explanation Katy.  DS has been using 'ssss' for everything for ages.  There is a slight difference between 'sssss' meaning the sound a snake makes and 'sssss' meaning 'shhh' and then there is the general 'ssss' which means absolutely everything else in the universe.  I hadn't thought of the sign being used in the same way but makes total sense. Thanks.

I wonder how many of the BSL signs are similar to the auslan ones...

Even in different counties and towns in the UK BSL differs massively making it pretty difficult to communicate from one place to another.
Many years ago I volunteered to communicate at some workshops for friends of the young deaf (a UK group for kids who are either deaf/hh or have a sibling or parent etc who is.  The group brings hearing and deaf together so the kids are less isolated), it was arts and crafts and storytelling.  There was a guy from the USA (hmmm I think he was a prof from Bernadette university?  It's a uni for deaf people) leading one of the days, deaf signing ASL.  Well there was no way I could have translated for the hearing kids.  So, in a very confusing triangulated translation one of the other workers, a deaf Australian girl, translated this guys ASL into BSL (to translate for the deaf kids) and I translated into English (for the hearing kids).  Not easy.  I could see the girl struggling at times to understand and translate and then there were my struggles too and I couldn't ask for any clarification because she never looked at me, only the guy who she was translating.  Crazy
I also visited a school for the deaf when I lived in Kenya, the kids there loved that I signed but of course all different and any clues that are often picked up by lip speaking/reading were useless as they were lip speaking Swahili and I was speaking English.  Yep an isolating world for the deaf community when there are so many differences in the signs.

[amayzie]

yeah- we have northern and southern signs here- as well as local signs. Possibly not as varied as yours in the UK- in that our language/accent is a lot more the same throughout compared with england (can you tell i did linguistics? Nerd alert!) - but still local differences... I don't have much to do with the deaf community- and suspect that there's not a very large one in my city.. but through my job as a key word sign or makaton tutor you do hear some stuff about the deaf community and how auslan works. My latest aim- to avoid signs that make you seem like a 'speech teacher'!! I'm fairly hopeless at languages though- so have not really been tempted to learn auslan as such-

On the baby signing front- hamish understands a range of signs which is good- and continues to sign his one and only sign 'shower'!

[anna*]

OK I admit it I am getting really impatient for Audrey to 'show me a sign'!

Here's a question: when she's done eating, she very clearly has her own 'sign' - she rubs her nose/face when she's finished. Once she starts doing that, mealtime is over. My question is, should we adopt that as our sign for 'finished'/'all done'? Or keep showing her the correct sign?