T21 Tidbits :: Signs and Wonders

Happy October...or around my house it is Down syndrome Awareness Month.  This month I hope to bring you some things that I have learned along my parenting journey with Beau.  Educators, therapists, and healthcare providers tend to measure a child's developmental progress in 5 categories, or domains: 

1.  Language & Communication (communicate needs and wants)

2.  Cognitive (thinking, learning, perceiving)

3.  Physical  (gross motor skills and fine motor skills..handwriting, jumping, walking, running, dressing, feeding)

4.  Emotional (appropriate feelings...empathy, impulse control, self regulation, joy, resilience)

5.  Social (age appropriate interactions with peers..greetings, turn taking, relevant conversation)

Today let's talk Language Development and Communication, specifically the use of sign language in individuals with Down syndrome (especially babies, toddlers, and young children).  Beau is working on several commonly used signs right now such as "more", "drink", "play", "dog", etc.  

We DO NOT teach Beau to sign because we think he will not be able to speak.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.  

Research shows that children (any child) can benefit from learning signs early in life in order to communicate with others.  Here are a few research-based reasons why we choose to use sign language (along with lots of talking!) to encourage and enhance Beau's language development:

• children with Down syndrome show an early advantage for signing and signs can significantly increase their communicative ability during an important developmental period
• signing can help reduce frustration and challenging behavior
• the use of signs can be phased out, or abandoned, as speech improves
•  early interaction with manual signs, may have long-term benefits for the development of children with Down syndrome
•  signing leads to more intelligible speech it may benefit communication even if the other person does not know any signs

In a nutshell and in my opinion which is not research-based but "real life special education teacher  and mom based"  sign language gives a person a voice.  We all have the right to a voice.  

"Although most children with Down syndrome learn to speak and will use speech as their primary means of communication, they will understand language and have the desire to communicate well before they are able to speak. Total communication, using sign language, pictures, and/or electronic synthesized speech can serve as a transitional communication system." (NDSS)

Here are a few articles I referenced:

Signing and Lexical Development in Children with Down Syndrome

About Baby Signing

Also we have two main ways that we like to learn right now:

Signing Time (on youtube)

LMNOP class at GiGis Playhouse

Please let me know if you have any questions and we can learn together! I also love comments with resources, tools, or strategies  In the next blog we will explore a different developmental domain....physical!