Kids and Sign Language

As you found out today, we have been working on American Sign Language. This is an important tool for kids to learn and because they have young minds, it is much easier for them to grasp basic commands.

So what is sign language?

Now is a good time to ask. According to the Linguistic Society of America, "During most of the 20th century, no one really knew. Not even Deaf people who used sign language in their daily lives knew what it was. Those who noticed that many thoughts are expressed differently in sign and in English assumed that sign was an ungrammatical form of English. Most Americans thought it was a way to express English words with signs—a substitute for speech. As the truth came to light in the second half of the 20th century, it surprised everyone."

Sign language is more than just a substitute for the acoustic version of speech that we are most familiar with, using instead a series of hand and body gestures along with facial expressions to convey the meaning of the "speaker's" intent. Wherever there are deaf people, sign languages develop. the substitute languages number in the hundreds with American Sign Language or ASL being the most recognized.

Juan Pablo Bonet is credited with the first formal instruction in sign language when he published the first manual on logopedia, a method to teach the deaf to communicate without words. His work first appeared in Madrid in 1620 titled Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos or "Reduction of letters and art for teaching mute people to speak". A century later, Charles-Michel de l'Épée formalized the alphabet and it has changed little since.

The question most hearing people first ask is: "Do the signs of American Sign Language (ASL) stand for English words?" the Linguistic Society offers this as way to explain: "A simple test is to find English words that have two different meanings. If ASL signs stand for English words, there would be a sign with the same two meanings as the English word. For example, the English word “right” has two meanings: one is the opposite of “wrong,” the other is the opposite of “left.” But there is no ASL sign with these two meanings. They are expressed by two different signs in ASL, just as they are expressed by two different words in French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and most other languages."

To help you work on this important language form with your child, who, when I first instructed them on the process found the act of making gestures great fun, I have added a few links here for you to work on as well. This helpful link is from Sprout

Another browser from the ASL shows in Quicktime clips a wide variety of words. In factthis ASL browser actually shows you almost the entire English language signed in video form.

If you have time with your child at a computer, Signing Time for Kids offers numerous games and instructions for both your child and you. Your child often finds the act of playing a game a useful form of instruction. Try this memory game