Signs Galore
Memphis has not officially started speech therapy yet because of some insurance glitches, but he will be soon. Even so, we were told that one of the first things they start with is teaching the kids sign language. We decided to be proactive and get started on that right away.
We began by looking up signs for his frequently used objects at http://www.aslpro.com/, which was very helpful. But then our contact through early childhood intervention told us about the Signing Time dvds. I know this show comes on PBS, but we don't have cable for many reasons that I won't bore you with.
The benefit to these dvds is that everyone in the house is now learning Memphis's signs right along with him. He is proficient in cup, milk, more, blanket, I love you, ball, water, please and banana. Excitement overcomes him if we recognize his sign and respond with what he is asking for.
Sometimes he can't remember right away which sign he needs and comes at us with, "cup, cup, cup....more...milk, milk...blanket...cup, cup, cup" and we are standing there poised to get whatever it is if he can ever get it out. And other times he is trying to tell us something that he doesn't have a sign for yet and he gets frustrated and looks at his hands like, "Ok, guys come on. There's gotta be something you can do to show them what you want." It is nothing short of adorable.
Thankfully, we are seeing a decrease in his tantrums as his signing vocabulary increases. This just proves to us that we were correct when we suspected that he wanted very badly to communicate with us and was not able to. What a relief it is to be able to help him. It won't be long until we can't get him to stop talking.
**I held this post for a day so that I could try and get some pictures of Memphis doing some of his signs but, being the stubborn little man that he is, he would not cooperate. Maybe next time.
We began by looking up signs for his frequently used objects at http://www.aslpro.com/, which was very helpful. But then our contact through early childhood intervention told us about the Signing Time dvds. I know this show comes on PBS, but we don't have cable for many reasons that I won't bore you with.
The benefit to these dvds is that everyone in the house is now learning Memphis's signs right along with him. He is proficient in cup, milk, more, blanket, I love you, ball, water, please and banana. Excitement overcomes him if we recognize his sign and respond with what he is asking for.
Sometimes he can't remember right away which sign he needs and comes at us with, "cup, cup, cup....more...milk, milk...blanket...cup, cup, cup" and we are standing there poised to get whatever it is if he can ever get it out. And other times he is trying to tell us something that he doesn't have a sign for yet and he gets frustrated and looks at his hands like, "Ok, guys come on. There's gotta be something you can do to show them what you want." It is nothing short of adorable.
Thankfully, we are seeing a decrease in his tantrums as his signing vocabulary increases. This just proves to us that we were correct when we suspected that he wanted very badly to communicate with us and was not able to. What a relief it is to be able to help him. It won't be long until we can't get him to stop talking.
**I held this post for a day so that I could try and get some pictures of Memphis doing some of his signs but, being the stubborn little man that he is, he would not cooperate. Maybe next time.
Labels: Memphis
posted by Megan at 6:40 PM
1 Comments:
we don't have cable either. PBS is a free channel though. You should be able to get it (as well as CBS, ABC, NBC, and FOX) with your regular old bunny ears aka an antenna. Although you may not need it now that you have the dvd's
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