Why parents support the use of ASL

"Both of my children have learned ASL signs easily and use them functionally. My daughter, Sarah, was able to understand a woman at a baby shower the other day who signed "good job" to her. It is so rewarding to know that she has this skill at such an early age, and will have it throughout her life. This would not have been the case had we ‘made up’ our own signs."

--Teresa Fanton, Thornton, Colorado

Our daughter was able to express herself through simple signs (milk, more, all done) at 8 months old. She is now 13 months and readily uses over 35 signs to express herself. Just the other day she picked up a feather from our parrot and signed, "bird- hair". It is amazing! She can express herself and we can discuss concepts you wouldn’t normally think a 1 year old would understand.

--Jessica Jordan, Nashua, NH

"Due to the fact that Miles has Down Syndrome, learning American Sign Language signs has helped to reduce his frustration immensely, while his oral-motor skills continue to develop. I wanted Miles to be able to have a structured language system that he could use in the world, not just at home. When people don’t understand what Miles is trying to say, he will often use sign language to clarify his message. If we made up our own signs, people in the community may not know what he is trying to say.

"The signs have been easy for Miles to master as he gets older and his fine motor skills improve. At 30 months of age, he knows and uses, in addition to verbalizations, almost 200 signs. We encourage Miles to talk and sign at the same time. This has truly helped me to know what he knows, and we would have had no other way to know these things without the use of his signs AND words."

--Ruthie Ross, Denver, Colorado

"Maya knew over 100 ASL signs by the time she was 18 months old. ASL was easy for her to learn and proved to be a very effective communication tool. Maya’s transition from ASL to spoken language was seamless. At 18 months she said her first three-word sentence, ‘No water (in the) pool.’ Now that Maya is 25 months and knows well over 1000 spoken words, we still use ASL signs as a game. We appreciate the fact that the ASL signs that we learned may eventually serve as a bridge to help us communicate with deaf users of ASL."

--Katy Beck & John Hatten,

Bellingham WA

Final thoughts from author Joseph Garcia

"Using ASL not only provides family and extended family members with a unified system of communication, it also can offer childcare providers a standardized system to better serve the needs of all children.

"By using American Sign Language (ASL), British Sign Language (BSL), or the signs of a specific region, we open the doors to communicating with a much broader community of people – and we lay the foundation for our children to continue learning and using ASL throughout their lives.

"I think ASL is a gift from the deaf community. I can’t think of a better way for us to honor that gift than by using it to facilitate early communication and bonding."

-- Joseph Garcia,

Author of SIGN with your BABY

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