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Baby talk 101: Is sign language a good idea for late talkers?
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While perusing an on-line auditory processing group, I found some important advice by audiologist Laura Polich Ph.D., CCC. A mom was discussing her child's speech delays and was given "advice" that could be destructive. The advice was NOT to use sign language, by not allowing signing, it would "force" the child to talk instead. Luckily Ms Polich was there to give out some great advice. Here it is:
"As a practicing audiologist, and a now-not-practicing speech pathologist, I wanted to comment on the speech therapist who wanted you to stop using sign language so that the children would be "forced" to talk. Hogwash.
Underneath that request is the assumption that children are naturally lazy, and won't do anything they don't have to. Which I find absurd.
Children don't talk because of the effort (or lack of effort) it takes. They talk to communicate. Communication is the payoff, and they use whatever they can to get there. Humans inherently want to communicate.
Children don't talk because of the effort (or lack of effort) it takes. They talk to communicate. Communication is the payoff, and they use whatever they can to get there. Humans inherently want to communicate.
If they aren't talking, it is because they can't. Something isn't clicking. Their language skills and their voices aren't combining to produce intelligible speech. Thank God, you are giving them the alternative of your understanding the language they can produce with their hands.
I think you are doing exactly what is needed by using sign language. I am assuming that you continue to talk to them (so they are getting the linguistic input from a verbal source) and you are treating their signs as communication. That in turn gives them the positive reinforcement we humans get from communicating with other humans. That encourages them to communicate more.
That is far superior to refusing to respond to the communication they are capable of now (signs) and letting them live through a lot of frustration, in the hope that they will find their way to oral language because of desperation.
If you have deaf relatives, you have probably hear some pretty awful stories told by deaf people about how they had long periods of non-communication because well-meaning speech teachers told their parents not to learn sign language so that the deaf children would be "forced to talk". The "being forced" didn't make any deaf child talk faster, it just made the process more unpleasant.
When children have the ability to talk, they will talk. When your children get to the developmental point that they can convert communicative impulses into speech, they will. In the meantime, you are giving them a way now (signs) to experience the very powerful joy we humans get by communicating with each other. That joy of communication is what is going to spur them on to more and more communication, and hopefully, in time, speech.
Don't accept the "children are inherently lazy" argument from any professional. I think you understand your kids well. Just keep on talking to them, and keep on understanding their signs."
Here is the evidence to show that early sign language enhances overall communication skills in children.
For more info: Come and visit the Auditory Processing dicussion group here..
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