My oldest son had his first appointment with a speech therapist, and we learned some sign language to help the kid communicate with me for now. I’m trying to figure out what sort of sign language it is. I Googled ASL, and that doesn’t look like it, but I’ve no idea what other sign languages exist.
I’ll describe what we learned, and perhaps somebody will recognize it:
“more” = hands pointed toward each other, in cone-like shapes (that one does look like the ASL sign)
“want” = one hand, slightly cupped, tapping at one’s own chest
“ball” = both hands, fingers spread, held together as if one were holding a ball
Another was the sign for “I need to go potty,” but I’m not sure of the precise meaning. It’s a fist with the thumb between the first and second finger, and a twisting motion of the wrist.
I’m just interested in reading more about this, before our next appointment.
I’m looking around at what I have (both my kids were speech delayed), but it sounds like a purely situational language used for therapy- as in, it’s not a “real” sign language like ASL, made up of easily learned and repeated gestures for smaller kids.
I don’t have time right now for a lengthy post (cramming for finals and I’m stressing big time), but in all probability it is Signed Exact English (SEE)—a synthetic signed language developed in the 1970’s by educational researchers at Gallaudet University. I’ll look into it a little more when I get some time. Is your son deaf?
That “potty” sign is actually the letter “T” for “Toilet”. It is commonly used in ASL and SEE for when kids need to go.
The Ball sign sounds (heh) like ASL too. But note that at a basic level ASL and SEE or pidgin sign languages are pretty much the same…they just take ASL signs and either create an english grammar for them (in SEE) or just throw out the grammar entirely for pidgin.
In the US you are probably going to learn some form of ASL, or a sign system derived from ASL like SEE. If your child is only a few years old there won’t be any signigicant differences between them. Most parents of deaf kids never learn full ASL anyway, but use ASL signs with english word order. Even if the signs are just for therapy (for kids who aren’t deaf or hard of hearing but have other language delays) and aren’t full ASL they will almost always be the same as ASL signs.
Not deaf; he has delayed speech development. We had his hearing tested, and it’s fine, and his language comprehension is above average for his age. He just refuses to speak. We’re checking into all possibilities, and he’s probably going to have a few more evaluations to rule out other developmental issues. (I’m only freaking out mildly; he seems normal enough in most ways, but he just won’t talk.)
Thanks for the info so far, everyone. Anything else you can offer is welcome. I’m just looking for all the info I can gather. I’ll do some research on SEE.
Those are the same signs my son learned when he was small. I didn’t ever think about them being non-standard- maybe because of limited finger dexterity?
My son didn’t talk until 2 1/2, and had some other delays, but at 7 is pretty normal (for our family he he).
My nephew (now–eleven! crap, where does the time go!) is profoundly deaf, and grew up learning SEE. SEE for some reason is very controversial, a lot of ASL-only people feel very negatively about it. The bottom line for someone in your son’s situation is that there really is no difference between them.
SEE is essentially ASL with english grammar, and some signs modifed to express exact english synonyms. For instance the ASL sign “big” is just “B” hands moving away from each other…indicating something big. In ASL various shades of meaning can be conveyed by how big you sign “big”. SEE has the same sign for “big” but if you want to sign the exact english word “gigantic” you’d use a “G” handshape, “H” for huge, etc.
But for communicating on a basic level the signs are the same. I wouldn’t worry much about it at this point.
I didn’t speak in more than grunts until I was almost four. I wanted to get it right first.
My brother and I both saw a speech therapist. He had a speech impediment and mild dyslexia. I told mine that I just wasn’t ready, and they chalked it up to my stubbornness and intelligence.
This is the largest clearinghouse of information related to deafness anywhere on the Internet—start here. I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for.
We’re working on a very basic level, here. He’s three, almost four years old, so mastering the minimal signs with any sort of dexterity is pretty good for him. I’m surprised at the effectiveness of this therapy, though; he was using one hand sign within four hours of his first session, and he’s still using it to communicate with me. (So now I get, “Mom!” + (whack hand against chest, meaning “want”) a hundred times a day, as he points to the cookie jar. He’s figured out the reward for communicating. Just glad they didn’t teach him the sign for “chocolate.”)
Lemur, do you know why SEE is so negatively regarded by ASL users? They seem fairly similar to me, based on a cursory glance at both.
I believe what we’re looking at for my son is probably verbal apraxia (and I’ve no idea if I phrased that right or spelled it correctly). It’s some sort of disconnect between his brain and his mouth, as I understand it.
I can explain it to you after finals—it’s very complicated. Some Deaf people will literally turn and walk away if you use SEE with them. To a militant Deaf person, SEE represents a century of cultural oppression. To them, a deaf person who uses it is essentially the deaf equivalent of an Uncle Tom Negro. I’ll see if I can find some links for you.
I read a book a few years ago called “Baby Signs”. Could that be what it is? Looking on Amazon, I see there are several books out on the topic. The book I read stated that it was suggested for kids who were ready to communicate, but not yet able to talk.
Wellll…I believe it is all about a rebellion against the last 100 miserable years of deaf education. For the longest time deaf educators were anti-sign. Thought it would harm the ability of the deaf to learn to lip-read and voice. Sooo…sign was forbidden in lots of schools for the deaf. But many of these schools were boarding schools…after all, we can’t expect the family to learn to communicate with a deaf child, can we? So deaf kids were shipped off to boarding schools, and officially forbidden to sign. But of course signing went on all the time among the kids, behind the backs of the teachers. This hugely misguided policy was the cause of a lot of misery and educational failure.
So ASL is regarded semi-sacredly by a lot of Deaf people, and educational theories regarding the best way to teach deaf kids are looked upon with an understandable skepticism. Add to the complication that the majority of deaf kids are born to hearing parents. But a large number of those hearing parents never learn much sign beyond the rudiments. Plus the panic that many hearing parents have on the diagnosis of deafness, often they make decisions that are ill-informed. This is where the oralism fad came from, the idea that the goal was to make the deaf kids as much like hearing kids as possible, never mind how futile the effort often was. Or kids went to boarding schools where they can communicate with their peers effortlessly, but could barely talk with their parents. Deafness is in some ways a unique handicap, since it linguistically isolates the deaf. A blind kid might go to a school for the blind, might find that sighted people don’t appreciate the problems of the blind. But a deaf kid will often find that their parents literally cannot understand them.
SEE was invented as a way to help deaf kids learn english…for years literacy among the deaf was terrible. Oral-only education was a failure, but kids who knew only ASL weren’t being exposed to english, so their written-english skills were terrible. But a lot of Deaf adults consider SEE and other non-ASL sign systems to be an attack on ASL, which is regarded as the center of Deaf culture. ASL is something developed by the Deaf for the use of the Deaf in the face of opposition from the deaf-education philosophies of the last 100 years, something they are justifiably proud of creating. So, SEE is regarded as another attempt to make deaf kids conform to the hearing world. But SEE isn’t in the same league as oral-only education in my opinion, it has worked well for my nephew (although he would excel under any system IMNSHO).
Aaaaanyway, if you had a deaf child you’d probably be asked to take a position on this sooner or later. Parents of deaf kids often latch onto the first educator who will tell them that their methods will “fix” their kid. Oral-only, SEE, ASL-only, or some other weird philosophy, often choices are made early for a kid, and then defended irrationally because the stakes are so high, and to admit that one has made a bad decision for your child that will affect them the rest of their life is very difficult. So there are a lot of people out there who have a lot of emotional investment in the “right” way to raise a deaf child. But since your child isn’t deaf, you get to learn sign without having to subscibe to any political position on signing! Yay, you!
I guess I’m off the hook—Lemur’s post pretty much covered all the bases. If you want an even more in-depth explanation read Harlan Lane—particularly *The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community * (DawnSign Press, 1999).