Teaching Pre Schoolers ASL

Miss-Delectable said:
That's great, babyblue. Keep up the good job. :)

Fredfam, good luck on the job when it starts.

Maybe ASL will be a huge trend that hearing parents of deaf kid will have no choice but to allow it.
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I hope so too. One thing I have noticed is that the market will provide
what is demanded by more than one group. Like, Deaf people have
been demanding the use of their language for years and have largely
been ignored. Now us Hearing moms have found a "new" use for ASL.
Why, we are going to have smarter babies! ASL makes your baby
smarter and once we moms found that out, the competition is on!
Who gets bragging rights about how soon their baby signed their
first sign?! :giggle: Moms are sooo competitive sometimes. But that
is never lost on the people who desire to profit. So once ASL becomes
the IN thing among the Hearing populace, (for whatever silly competitive
reasons) and the powers that be now have to jump through the
tax payers and consumers hoops, well low and behold now the arguments
against ASL will gradually die the death they deserve. Maybe it was some
really smart Deaf person who pointed out to us Hearing mommies that
our babies could be made smarter, all the time knowing that it would
have a snowballs effect. Rolling and rolling and getting bigger and
bigger! I am optimistic about the Deaf communities educational future.
 
I taught preschool children for 20 years and always taught my students ASL. I think it's a great benefit to be able to learn the language. I wish more teachers would use it in the classrooms :)
 
My daughter is in a mainstream preschool program. She has a hearing impaired teacher that comes to her class 2 times a week for 30 mins and works with her. Her teacher happens to be deaf and has an interpreter with her. She is teaching sign and oral to Ashely. If the parent stresses the importance of their child learning sign they have to provide the service from what I was told about the schools here. I requested that to be in her IEP. I think it is great for kids as well as adults to learn sign. Communication is key to many things. It opens many doors.
 
Teaching ASL to babies is so great! I love it. I can undy if hearing parents of hearing children dont do it but for deaf children, pls use ASL with them. They really need it.
 
ashleysmommy said:
My daughter is in a mainstream preschool program. She has a hearing impaired teacher that comes to her class 2 times a week for 30 mins and works with her. Her teacher happens to be deaf and has an interpreter with her. She is teaching sign and oral to Ashely. If the parent stresses the importance of their child learning sign they have to provide the service from what I was told about the schools here. I requested that to be in her IEP. I think it is great for kids as well as adults to learn sign. Communication is key to many things. It opens many doors.
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Good for you for having it written into her IEP!
 
Babyblue said:
I am currently a Pre School teacher and I am very active on teaching my pre schoolers signs. I get alot of positive feedbacks from the parents. It is true that kids learn signs a whole lot faster than speech. I have taught several infants and toddlers signs and I communicate with parents and let them know what the child is saying. I taught several babies "more milk please" and taught them differents sign on the vocabulary words that is in the cirriculum and lesson plans. I'm also a V.P.K teacher which is the No Child Left Behind program to teach 4 year olds before the enter Kindergarden. They truely enjoy learning signs and learning how to express themselves in a positive way. These children are all hearing children with hearing parents and it is great. I even have parents/grandparents buying and looking up to learn ASL so they can communicate with their child better. Even the owner of the center is getting involved, it is a new trend and it will help to spread our language to others.
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I am glad you did this. Here is another idea to teach the infants and toddlers. Teach them "pain" and "where". I can't remember where I got the idea from and I thought it was a great idea. If a infant/toddler cry, ask them where the pain is. That way a parent would know if it is just toothache or possibly something more serious. That really cut down the guessing.
 
shel90 said:
Teaching ASL to babies is so great! I love it. I can undy if hearing parents of hearing children dont do it but for deaf children, pls use ASL with them. They really need it.
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I agree! The deaf kid needs sign language much more than a hearing kid! This myth is hard to get rid of. What can we do to dispel this myth??? I see that as a form of abuse and I am tired of it.
 
I am also a preschool teacher of deaf and hard of hearing children. What a wonderful job we have! Right now I'm struggling with dealing with parents who have been given wrong information such as speech and language is the same thing (oh no!)...and how my signing limits their children's ability to ever learn speech (oh no!)...so I have my hands full (no pun intended) with this issue. Most of my students come into my classroom at ages 3 and 4 with virtually no language (most do not even know their own names)...it is AMAZING to see how fast they pick up ASL and actually show that they are comprehending and internalizing language.
 
deafbajagal said:
I am also a preschool teacher of deaf and hard of hearing children. What a wonderful job we have! Right now I'm struggling with dealing with parents who have been given wrong information such as speech and language is the same thing (oh no!)...and how my signing limits their children's ability to ever learn speech (oh no!)...so I have my hands full (no pun intended) with this issue. Most of my students come into my classroom at ages 3 and 4 with virtually no language (most do not even know their own names)...it is AMAZING to see how fast they pick up ASL and actually show that they are comprehending and internalizing language.
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I agree..

Now this boils down to this subject..throwing this thread off a bit.

Hearing parents are so eager to have their hearing children learn ASL. They know it doesn't delay speech or grammar. and it actually helps improve the language skills early on.

BUT hearing parents of deaf child. ALOT of them don't want their children to learn ASL because they THINK it will delay a childs speech or grammar.

Why is that?
 
I don't know.

Maybe make a professional video and give evidence that it's a myth and have a couple of hearing parents feature in the video as well one of the expert in this expertise?
 
Babyblue said:
I agree..

Now this boils down to this subject..throwing this thread off a bit.

Hearing parents are so eager to have their hearing children learn ASL. They know it doesn't delay speech or grammar. and it actually helps improve the language skills early on.

BUT hearing parents of deaf child. ALOT of them don't want their children to learn ASL because they THINK it will delay a childs speech or grammar.

Why is that?
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Because the so called experts tell them it might delay their
speech. People still think that having a degree in something
means that the proffesional knows more than they do.

In doing research for my bf s baby who had a terminal illness,
I found a possible treatment by studying the way mouse models
with this illness coped with it, and tried to find a medical professional
willing to try the treatment. It was a treatment I invented! NO doctor
was willing to try it (even though the little guy was terminal and even
though they already admitted they could do nothing) Every cellular
biologist I called across this nation said the same thing. "There is no
research that indicates the human body could react in the same way
that the mice models do". And I'm asking them why they are pretesting
drugs on mice if they are such bad examples!? Grrrrrrrrrr!

The worst part is that, that was 7 years ago and I just read online
where some one is proposing the same treatment I came up with
be used. To late for my bf s baby.

My point is doctors and other professionals don't always keep up
with their fields, and they seem to think if you don't have a degree
you are incapable of coming up with anything yourself. Look how
many people end of diagnosing their own illnesses, because no
one in the medical world can help them. And many times they
nearly die. The sad part is that we have developed a new kind
of class society where a degree confers upon its bearer some
kind of new educational nobility that shouldn't be questioned.
And us little peeons better not question else we be accused of
abusing our children.
 
fredfam1 said:
Because the so called experts tell them it might delay their
speech. People still think that having a degree in something
means that the proffesional knows more than they do.

In doing research for my bf s baby who had a terminal illness,
I found a possible treatment by studying the way mouse models
with this illness coped with it, and tried to find a medical professional
willing to try the treatment. It was a treatment I invented! NO doctor
was willing to try it (even though the little guy was terminal and even
though they already admitted they could do nothing) Every cellular
biologist I called across this nation said the same thing. "There is no
research that indicates the human body could react in the same way
that the mice models do". And I'm asking them why they are pretesting
drugs on mice if they are such bad examples!? Grrrrrrrrrr!

The worst part is that, that was 7 years ago and I just read online
where some one is proposing the same treatment I came up with
be used. To late for my bf s baby.

My point is doctors and other professionals don't always keep up
with their fields, and they seem to think if you don't have a degree
you are incapable of coming up with anything yourself. Look how
many people end of diagnosing their own illnesses, because no
one in the medical world can help them. And many times they
nearly die. The sad part is that we have developed a new kind
of class society where a degree confers upon its bearer some
kind of new educational nobility that shouldn't be questioned.
And us little peeons better not question else we be accused of
abusing our children.
Click to expand...


I understand your comparison in this statement. Dr's and people are telling hearing parents that the child will be delayed in speech due to ASL (which is a bunch of crock) due to the child will be delayed in speech because that child CANT hear. ASL is not the reason ....the hearing loss is....

depending on the parenting skills and the choices the parents make is what will mold that child grammar and speech skills and it also depends on what that child wants to learn.

ASL is not a dirty little scam that will keep your child from learning. I believe it will help a child to learn more and have more language skills due to they learn it very early on in life.

Dr's want to say this and that and they don't always know.
 
Babyblue said:
I understand your comparison in this statement. Dr's and people are telling hearing parents that the child will be delayed in speech due to ASL (which is a bunch of crock) due to the child will be delayed in speech because that child CANT hear. ASL is not the reason ....the hearing loss is....

depending on the parenting skills and the choices the parents make is what will mold that child grammar and speech skills and it also depends on what that child wants to learn.

ASL is not a dirty little scam that will keep your child from learning. I believe it will help a child to learn more and have more language skills due to they learn it very early on in life.

Dr's want to say this and that and they don't always know.
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preachin to the choir:cool:
 
Oh the ironic, deaf children are the one who need it badly and yet they teach ASL to hearing children. lol

But hey I am not saying it's a bad thing. It's good for any child to be able to communicate in method that's easiest for them.
 
Silentwolfdog said:
Oh the ironic, deaf children are the one who need it badly and yet they teach ASL to hearing children. lol

But hey I am not saying it's a bad thing. It's good for any child to be able to communicate in method that's easiest for them.
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But think of all those hearing children who will grow up knowing
that sign language is just another beautiful language!
They will be interacting with Deaf people their age and it
can only make things better for everyones future. ASL won't
be considered so different any more. It will be good. It is sad
the change hasn't come sooner. But change in all things, when
purposeful and steady is usually permanent.
 
Eh, I dunno. I don't think many of them will use ASL for rest of their life. And beside how much things do you really remember from when you were 2 or 3 years old?

But hey what you said could happen as well.
 
Silentwolfdog said:
Eh, I dunno. I don't think many of them will use ASL for rest of their life. And beside how much things do you really remember from when you were 2 or 3 years old?

But hey what you said could happen as well.
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Well, I'm not thinking so much about them remembering
what they were taught. But the attitude towards sign
language will have changed. Instead of being somethiing
that is done by people with a disability, they will think
of ASL as the language of a different culture. Deaf people
won't have to be dealing with uninformed predjudice that
they have had to deal with in the past. That will be the
change, and the most important one.
 
fredfam1 said:
Well, I'm not thinking so much about them remembering
what they were taught. But the attitude towards sign
language will have changed. Instead of being somethiing
that is done by people with a disability, they will think
of ASL as the language of a different culture. Deaf people
won't have to be dealing with uninformed predjudice that
they have had to deal with in the past. That will be the
change, and the most important one.
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That is my hope, too. More exposure to ASL might equal to less prejudging.
 
Amy Cohen Efron's vlogs "The Greatest Irony" address exactly this issue. I see now she's selling them instead of having them available publicly but basically the question is, if "baby sign" for hearing infants is so great, why isn't it also great for deaf babies?
 
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