Interview with Rachel Coleman of Signing Time ASL video series -- Part 2

Photo taken from the website of Expressive Hands, LLC

This article is a continuation piece.  My introduction to sign language as a valuable tool for all children, not just the deaf -- as well as Part 1 of my interview with Rachel Coleman of Signing Time! -- can be found HERE.

Sure, babies and toddlers are using sign language for their earliest form of communication and many of them drop it as soon as their speech is clear.  Children with special needs, language delays, Autism, etc. often rely on sign language for communication for the rest of their lives, so clearly there is a benefit for them.  But typical children who may already be in school, what’s the benefit, you ask?  It’s simple.  I don’t think there is a person out there who would say that learning a second language is a bad thing.  I learned the manual alphabet when I was eight years old.  I never forgot it.  Now, that says something.  How many things did you learn when you were a kid that you can recall with precision?  Sign language is an incredible learning tool.  It incorporates so many of the different learning styles.  It is physical, visual, spatial, three dimensional, rhythmic and kinesthetic.  Show me another mode of learning that covers all of those bases!  The information is in your hands, it’s part of your body and experience.  Leah knew her ABCs in ASL before she was two years old.  She could see them on her fingers, she memorized the pattern and she could identify the corresponding letter in print.  This gave her access to all kind of information!  She would fingerspell words that she saw on buildings and ask me what those words meant.  A two-year-old without those signs, without the manual alphabet, might see letters and even recognize them, but they can’t write them down.  Without signs, they have no way of accessing and communicating that information to you.

Sign language is a great parenting tool and it is great for classroom management.  It requires everyone to pay attention with more than their ears.  Children learn to look for and respond to silent cues.  As a parent, I noticed that when my youngest, Lucy really wanted my full attention, she would sign to me.  There was no doubt in her mind that I would give her my undivided attention and was eager to decipher her signs.  Which brings me to one of the best things about signing with your children: you have to look at each other.  It is face-to-face. You are not hollering down the hall, or staring at your computer screen and mumbling to them as they stand behind you.  You are connected. 

When we created Signing Time! there was very little “competition” in existence.  Due to the fact that I needed to learn sign language when we found out Leah was deaf, I became a consumer of a number of videos that taught ASL.  I found that the available products were very boring and hard to sit through, even for a mother whose communication with her daughter was on the line!  If my husband Aaron and I could barely sit through the lessons, there was no way a child would be patient enough to learn this way.

When developing Signing Time!, my sister Emilie and I brainstormed the things we felt were important to include.  We knew that children enjoy watching and imitating other children.  Children also respond well to animation, and they equally like to see the real item.  Incorporating this into Signing Time! resulted in a method that helped our viewers connect a concrete object with an artistic or animated representation.  And even though we knew the audience was young, we felt it was important to see the written word so that we would be introducing literacy skills.  All of these elements are included in Signing Time.  At the very last minute I was added to the mix as an adult who could clearly model the signs.  Originally, Alex and Leah were meant to teach the signs and it just didn’t work.  Sure, they communicated in signs, but that is different than teaching a sign to someone.  We realized that we needed a clear, concise signer to present each sign.  Emilie decided that person was me. (I was really reluctant!)

When Baby Einstein released their baby sign language DVD I was really excited.  If Disney was going to put their resources into baby signing, then there was no doubt that we were already doing the right thing.  I believe that Disney’s marketing dollars, and their messaging that signing is good for babies, has helped bring even more customers to Signing Time!  We have one of the largest DVD libraries available to families who want to learn American Sign Language vocabulary.  Once you’ve exhausted any other company’s line of 1 to 4 DVDs, you are going to find Signing Time! It’s just a matter of time.  I am especially confident that if you’ve seen other children’s signing products first, you are really going to love what we do.