Every so often I need to brush up on my sign language. Even though I have taken courses in sign language, it is like any other language, you have to use it to stay fluent.
Recently I have started to use sign language with a child I work with on the Autism Spectrum. After being evaluated at Yale, they suggested I use sign language while reading books to him. So far I am not sure if it is a distraction or help to his following the story but I will keep you posted.
I wanted to share a website dedicated to teaching signs, through its video dictionary, that I found very helpful:
“Signing Savvy” has large,clear videos of signs and an easy search option. It’s comprehensive dictionary gives you several options to be more specific. For example when I searched for “go,” they gave two options for “go” as in “go away” or “go somewhere.” If you sign up and give them some basic information like your name and address, you are privy to more options like the sign description.
Let me know if any of you SLP’s are using sign language effectively with children on the autism spectrum, especially higher functioning kids. How is it going and how are you using signs? What other sites do you find helpful?
November 14th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Hi Sherry,
I love your website. I’m a bilingual slp working at a special Ed co-op http://www.nsseo.org in
Arlington Heights, Il. I’ve always used music combined with sign language as it appears to “anchor” new information learned. I find it helps with retention, retrieval, automaticity. I’m creating “parallel” songs to introduce Span/Eng vocab and concepts with the asl as the bridge between the two spoken languages. I’m presenting at NAEYC in DC next week (with a surprise guest, Rachel Coleman). Although it’s tricky, I love her dvd’s. I’m part of a diognostic team primarily testing kids of Hispanic descent. Because the majority of them are from poverty, presenting with significant delays, I don’t hesitate recommending strategies such as the use of asl to anchor new learning. Not only are many of these kids language impaired (the ones referred to me) but they’re also ELL’s needing to learn a second language!
November 15th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Hi Gloria,
Your work sounds fascinating and I love the link between language and music.
Keep up the good work and keep me posted.
Best,
Sherry