Ok I am losing my mind i can not remember anything. Preston was diagnosed with profound hearing loss caused by auditory neuropathy. He is going to be getting hearing aids, but i am wanting to teach the kids some sign language. which wouldn't hurt any of us to learn anyway. we are just starting out and i can not find good resources or i am not sure what to use. We have the baby einstein sign language one which he likes so we are watching that but i thought their was something else out their that people recomend. Please help

jaclyn

Jaclyn

http://thesheridangang.blogspot.com/

The Baby Einstein is good to start with. I have 2 or 3 or those with some signs on them, and the girls did well. We began using signs around 10 months of age. I don't have any children with hearing loss but 2 with SID. One had extreme difficulty with communication, and this helped tremendously.

I also did well with the Sign with your Baby book and dvd by Dr. Joseph Garcia for quite awhile. It has a easy book and a stick up reference chart. I also used plain flash cards from places like the Dollar Store for visuals for the girls and used the sign to help them learn. We all used some signs through out the day to really help sink the most common words needed in quickly.

As my girls got older, they started to show interest in the show series The Signing Times. I am trying to find a set of those dvds inexpensively myself. They are expensive. The girls learn a lot and retain a lot from that show since they turned 2.5 y/o.

We began using signs around 10 months of age.

Good luck!

Melissa

Wife to my best friend
Mom to GGG
05-04

Signing Times videos are the best I've seen!


www.signingtimes.com

I believe they are also on PBS Saturday mornings, but I'm not sure if that's still true.

Maryann
Mommy to
Malena, Joshua, and Jacob
born 12/20/03 @ 34w5d

Visit us at
www.kwiat3.blogspot.com

Oh, mine LOVED (and still love) signing time. We have all 13 videos and Emma knew all of them and even learned to spell with the help of them by age 2 1/2. She could sign, say and recongnise her ABC's early on and it went from there.

It helps alot with my Anna, who has down syndrome, she knows so many signs, it's great. She also loves the signing times books. I think that would be a great place to start.

Jane
Anna/Emma/John/^James^ (9/24/03-9/29/03) 26 wkers
In memory of my beloved Emma 9/24/03 - 1/19/07
www.snanimals.com
www.jlperillo.etsy.com (my etsy shop)
http://snanimals.blogspot.com (my blog)

Signing Time videos for sure. http://www.signingtime.com ought to get you there.

This website is great. http://www.signwithme.com/main_signs.asp?ID=67

However, you have a choice on how to sign. You can sign ASL, which is the deaf language, which has its own grammar etc. Or you can sign SEE, signed exact english. Visit http://www.seecenter.org/brochure.htm for additional details.

When one of my triplets became profoundly deaf, we wanted to get started on some sign while she ramped up on hearing aids (she's 4.5 now and has bilateral cochlear implants). We started with Signing Time videos and progressed to SEE sign. I took a SEE signing intensive workshop through the above link and would say that if you do one of the weekend ones, you will be proficient enough after that intense weekend to do a lot of basic signing and to use the dictionary to add the words you don't know. The benefits of SEE are that you can add endings and sign every word, so that when your son listens, he will also match all the articles/endings "s" etc on the words and catch it. It's much more exact than ASL and you don't switch around word order. You sign what you speak, exactly.

Another interesting thing that is fairly new is cueing. http://www.cuedspeech.org/ This doesn't sign words - it signs SOUNDS. So basically any word, any accent, any foreign word can be cued while you say it, so once you learn the system, you can communicate absolutely anything and it literally goes along with the sounds of speaking orally. I don't know cued speech but I'm very interested in learning it for those times when my daughter's implant is off.

Anyway - I recommend taking a look at all of the methods and see which one, or combination of methods, works for you. I will eventually take some ASL classes but frankly when we discovered Claire's hearing loss, I was busy enough with baby triplets that I didn't have time to learn a new language. SEE worked very well for us initially (and she picked right up on it) and it seemed just better known in my area. That makes a difference too. But cued speech is extremely appealing to me.

Good luck with your signing!
Peggy
mom to Anne, Claire (profoundly deaf, bilateral CI's) and Catherine, 4.5 years old

by the way, there is a lot of overlap in SEE signs with ASL signs, but just like another language, some words don't translate. For example in ASL, "toys" are signed "play things" but in SEE, there is a word for toy and a word for doll etc - they are distinct, just like English, unlike ASL. But I think 40% or so of signs are similar or the same. I can manage with rudimentary conversation with an ASL signer with a little SEE. But if you want involvement in the deaf community, SEE won't cut it - ASL is the only way.

Everyone has told you great resources for sign language. I bought the 'signingtime' videos and my kids loved them. This was actually a great way for ME to learn different signs as well.

However, the best way for your kids to learn is for you to sign to them throughout the day in different situations. (a book I bought taught me about his) I'm sure you already know this. For ex, using the sign "more" while they are eating, but also playing a game with them & integrating "more" into the game you are playing. It also really helps for you to teach them a sign by you guiding their hands to make the sign.

If you and your husband both work, then you need a caregiver who will be committed to signing throughout the day.

Good luck and have lots of fun while you learn!

Mom to Jacob, Benjamin, & Eden
BBG triplets born 9/29/04 @ 35wks gestation

2 of my triplets also have auditory neuropathy and hearing aids did not work. They finally got cochelar implants 4 months ago and are finally hearing. Before that my husband and I took two semesters of SEE sign at the local community college here in California. SEE sign is usually what they use in the deaf schools and pre-schools as well. I would check out the above link to the SEE Center and speak to Esther Zawalkow herself as she co-authored the SEE sign books. She is very knowledgable. Both of her parents were deaf. She is also the instructor on the SEE Sign courses and I took my classes from her. 2 of my triplets are pretty proficient in sing and have their receptive language in SEE sign (1 deaf and 1 hearing) my other deaf triplet has quadrapalegic cerebral palsy and is not capable of signing. I would also look into mail courses from the John Tracey Clinic. They are free. Good Luck. Check into getting cochlear implants. It's the only thing that helped my triplets. Mine got theirs done at House Ear Institute.
Deborah
Mom to Austin, Braedon & Caysen Born at 25weeks 1Day