Signing Success: Nurturing Communication and Connection in Our Homeschooling Journey with Down Syndrome
Ask most child experts and they will say there are great benefits to teaching babies and toddlers sign language. It helps reduce tantrums. It also increases their connection with their parents because they are able to communicate. Toddlers with down syndrome tend to take a little longer to learn new skills. Teaching them sign language becomes even more important. Even though a toddler’s receptive language is really good they may not be able to verbally communicate their needs until 3 or 4 years old. They are very good at learning sign language though. Read about our signing success and how we are nurturing communication and connection in our homeschooling journey with down syndrome.
9 Signs Nurturing Communication
We first started teaching our daughter signs that she would need to communicate basic needs. Starting with “milk”, “all done” and “more” worked best for us. We would do the sign for “milk” every time we made a bottle. Doing the signs for “all done” and “more” during meal time was also important. Once she started imitating the signs for “all done” and “more” while eating we started doing them during other times. If she was playing with a toy but seemed done we would use the “all done” sign and then put the toy away. If we were reading books to her and she picked out another book we would use the sign “more” to read more books.
Once she knew those three signs we moved on to a few more helpful signs. She learned the signs for “again”, “eat”, “please”, “thank you”, “help”, and “stop”. With all of these signs our daughter was able to communicate her needs pretty well. We didn’t see too many tantrums from not knowing what she wanted.
12 Signs Nurturing Connection
Next, we taught our daughter signs for physical objects that she likes. We taught her the signs for “book”, “ball”, “apple”, “strawberry”, “cracker”, and “bath”. These are all things she really likes to play with, eat or do. Teaching her these signs helped her communicate even more specifically what she wanted. If your child likes cars, blocks, blueberries, cookies and drawing you can teach them those signs to help with their specific communication needs.
Now that our daughter is officially a toddler we are working on the normal things. We are teaching her animal names and sounds, colors and counting. So, of course, we are using sign language to help her communicate what she is learning. So far she has picked up on “duck”, “cow”, “horse”, “red”, “green”, and “white”. Each child will pick up signs based on their own needs and personality but understand that they are learning to communicate their needs.
How We Give Our Daughter This Signing Success
Three main ways we are giving our daughter this signing success while nurturing communication and connection in our homeschooling journey with down syndrome are repetition, helping, and patience.
When we introduce a new sign we repeat it often. It’s also important to repeat it at appropriate times and while the child is looking at you. If you do the sign at random times then the child won’t understand its true meaning. And if you do the sign when they child is not focused on what you are doing and saying they will not learn either. Every time you use the object or do the activity you should demonstrate the sign several times.
Once the child begins to appear engaged in what you are signing and seems to want to try it themselves you will want to help them. Hand-over-hand is the best in the beginning. Take their hands and make the sign. Start incorporating this method every time you use the object or do the activity.
Lastly, and probably most importantly, use patience while teaching them. It can take a lot of time. Your child might be like mine and stare at you like you are crazy for several months before they even attempt to make the sign. Keep going! Once they get a couple of signs and they learn that even a small amount of communicating is powerful they will begin to catch on faster. The next signs will probably come a little quicker.
Conclusion
You’ll find a list of a variety of opinions on what signs to teach your child when you do a quick search. I’m sure they all can be helpful too. But I would encourage you to look at those lists and then watch what your child likes, uses and needs and let them show you what signs would be best to learn. If you try to teach your child a sign that doesn’t mean anything to them it will be harder for them to learn it. What To Expect has a great article about teaching your baby sign language. You can read about what signs to teach and how to teach them. It also talks about the benefits to teaching your baby sign language.