Weaving Professional and Personal

Sign2Me, Baby Signs and Signing Time, three respected, influential leaders in the baby signing movement, agree on the following benefits of signing with infants.


Signing...

• Reduces frustration and tantrums
• Creates an early ability to communicate
• Stimulates spoken language development

Each program lists additional benefits but these three were common between all of the programs. I will discuss additional benefits in another post. 

As I reviewed these benefits I began to reflect on my own use of signing with my daughter, Emma. I returned to the observation, "watching," and "wondering," phases.  Emma is 14 months old and is able to communicate her desires and needs quite effectively through signing and spoken words. Of course she screams to express herself at times, but these moments are very few and usually stopped quickly. I wonder if this is due in part to her ability to sign? Yes, I believe that signing has greatly enhanced her ability to communicate which in turn has decreased her frustrations and need to have a tantrum. 

Emma frequently uses the sign, "more" to indicate that she wants a snack. She also signs "water" for a drink and "all done" when she is finished eating or done with another activity. She does say "more" and "water" along with the sign and is beginning to say "all done." These signs allow her to express herself and they allow me to understand her needs so that I can respond accordingly.  Signing "all done" has been very helpful in reducing the instances of food being throw onto the floor. She is able to tell me she is finished instead of having to show me by throwing a plate.  Emma has begun to sign "potty" which is going to be wonderful as we move into the toilet training phase. 

In addition to signing her needs Emma is also able to express her desires. She signs "play," "book," "ball," and "dog" to convey what she would like to do. I feel that this empowers her as she moves into the more independent toddler stage. For example, she just woke up from a nap and was fussing. I asked her what she wanted and she signed, "eat." She is now happily having a snack while I finish this blog! :) I think that many toddlers know what they want to do but have no way of telling the adults. Intellectually they understand their desires but physically they are unable to verbally express everything, resulting in the dreaded "terrible" twos and threes.  I have no illusions that we will have our fair share of meltdowns; however, I am confident that they will be resolved more quickly and lessened by the ability to communicate through signs. 

Many critics of signing with babies argue that signing will delay verbal development. However, research has proven quite the opposite and all three signing companies agree that signing can enhance and help speech.  When I sign with Emma I say the word along with the sign. There have been some instances where she says the word before the sign, some where the sign comes first and others where they have come together.  For her 12 month well-baby appointment I made a list of her words and signs for the doctor.  I just reviewed that list and at 1 year old Emma had 23 spoken words and 13 signs ( I have no idea how many she has now!).  5 words she could both sign and say. Through my personal observations and reflections I see only language enhancement by including signs throughout our day, just as advocated by Sign2Me, Baby Signs and Signing Time.

Barbara Stripling (2010), reminds us that "...inquiry is recursive and cyclical, with learners going back and forth between the phases of inquiry to resolve new questions and complexities as they arise." I like order, lists and steps so going back in a project is counter intuitive to my personality. I love to mark things OFF the list. :) However, as I explore the benefits of signing with babies I am going to return to "watching" to help me as I "weave" the professional information together. 

Weaving

Now that I have my general questions, guiding questions and core resources I decided to begin focusing my information study and search on my three main sources. One of my main questions is: What are the benefits of signing with your baby? To start answering this question I reviewed the Sign2Me, Baby Signs and Signing Time websites in search of their discussions of signing benefits. I created a simple document in GoogleDocs that includes a table to list the benefits all three programs cite, as well as, ones specific to each organization. This helped me visualize and hone in on base benefits and unique insights. By using GoogleDocs I can add to this document at anytime and have others collaborate with their own information.  Callison (2006) writes that "Knowledge and understanding, therefore, will  move at different speeds and levels of meaning..." By gathering information into one place and focusing on specific parts of the whole (benefits, program components etc) I can help myself  start to align my knowledge and understanding of baby signing without becoming completely overwhelmed. I think I will be in the "weaving" stage for awhile this week. I will share my documents when I have formatted and completed the information.

Wiggling

For me this is a difficult step. There are so many great resources available that it is hard to choose just a few. However, as I was becoming overwhelmed with the information while "webbing," I decided to focus on two or three websites on which I could focus my inquiry. Many of the websites I encountered are maintained by parents. They have wonderful resources, suggestions, information and support for those that want to sign with babies. But in order to have a successful inquiry project there is no way I can keep track of and use everything available. Plus I wanted to make sure I was using information from credible sources.


I have chosen three websites to use as my main sources of information. I will probably use information from other sites and books as well, but these will form the foundation of my project. To determine what sources were authoritative I reviewed 17 websites that dealt with baby sign language, multilingualism, language acquisition and linguistics. Since I am questioning the benefits and teaching methods of baby signing I eliminated those that addressed languages and bilingualism but not signing. I then made notes of the names and signing programs that were frequently referenced in several websites. I did some brief research on the key people to determine the extent and credibility of their work. Through this process I narrowed my main references to Sign2Me, Signing Time and Baby Signs. These are all web sources but the founders also have books that I will be skimming this next week.


Sign2Me is a company that uses the Sign with your Baby program developed by Joseph Garcia. Garcia was referenced in several books and websites as one of the founding fathers behind the baby signing movement. He observed that children with deaf parents were communicating through signs much earlier than their peers raised by hearing parents. He conducted research on using sign language with hearing children and has written books and signing program for parents. You can read an overview of his work HERE.


SigningTime is a program developed by Rachel Coleman, the mother of a deaf child. When her daughter was found to be deaf at age 1, Coleman began to learn ASL and has created the Signing Time video series to help parents of deaf and hearing children learn sign language. She uses songs, animations and real children to quickly engage you in the learning process. I have used the Baby Signing Time videos with my daughter and they have made a significant difference in my ability to teach her signs, and she is very receptive to the videos. The Signing Time program is internationally recognized and includes DVDs, books, CDs and flash cards.


BabySigns was founded by Drs. Linda Acredolo and Susan Goodwyn. These women observed that children will often create signs to communicate their needs. The Baby Signs programs is bases on "a natural baby sign language that allows babies and their parents to use simple signs to communicate." It does not use ASL as the other two programs. Personally, I am an advocate of ASL sign language because I feel that you should establish a base of signs that could be built upon if the child decides to continuing signing as an adult. The validity of some of the research done by Acredolo and Goodwyn has been questioned. However, I am including Baby Signs as part of my project because they are highly recognized in the field of baby signing and do offer some excellent resources and information.

Callison (2006) writes that according to Carol Kuhlthau's theory "Information gains meaning when it becomes evidence." I feel that each of these programs have establish history, research and national/international recognition to be used as authoritative information resources. My local library has material from each of these programs which will allow me to review hard copies of the information as well. Callision discusses information literacy in reference to a person. However, I think that the concept can also be transferred to organizations.  These three companies seems to be  information literate, they "...know how knowledge is organized, how to find information, and how to use information in such a way that others can learn from them" (Callison, 2006). I  hope that I can become more information literate by using this inquiry to expand my knowledge, information usage skills and teaching abilities. 

Webbing

My information search process started with two basic searches--one in the library's online catalog and one through online search engines. I chose search terms out of the questions I had posed about baby sign language, language acquisition, bilingualism, multilingualism and benefits of baby signing. I placed several books on hold  and have skimmed each for information pertaining to my inquiry. There is so much information available about languages that I really had to narrow it by choosing a few books specifically about signing with babies. Although much of the other information could be incorporated, it would turn this into a semester, yearlong or dissertation project! I also used these search terms to seek out resources online. There is a plethora of information and websites addressing baby sign language and multilingualism. Many of the websites contain instructional video clips which are great information sources as well. Additionally, I watched the DVD Baby Sign Language Basics which features the work of author Monta Briant. To help narrow these sources I placed them all into a "stack" in delicious.com. I have since spent time briefly reviewing each website, creating tags and writing brief descriptions. Much of the information is repeated; however, there are differing levels of authority and resources. 

While reviewing these sources I tried to extrapolate terms, ideas and theories that I felt were significant to my inquiry. I also learned several names of key people that are influential in this field of study. I am going to focus my research and resources on references that include these experts that have been proven authorities. When I began this project I used bubbl.us to create a concept map of my ideas and thoughts. 

The amount of information and resources available is quite overwhelming. As an inquirer, librarian and information seeker I have this great desire to gather and absorb everything--not possible! Carol Kuhlthau discusses a drop in confidence that students experience during the exploration phase of her ISP model.  This lack of confidence is due to inconsistencies, over abundance of information and altered expectations that are encountered during the initial search process. I am definitely experiencing less confidence at the moment. I feel that there is so much I would like to address and share but don't have the time to do so for this assignment. At the same time I feel that I will not meet the project requirements or level of work if I don't incorporate all the research, sources, information and aspects of baby signing. Kuhlthau (1997) writes that, "...they [students] need to attend to the task of exploring information to form a focus for their research rather than collecting information to support a thesis."  I must remember this edict if I am to move forward in the inquiry project. It is very easy to get caught up in gathering source after source after source. However, there is not enough time or space to use each reference, no matter how valuable.


To help myself refocus and once again narrow my topic and ideas I created a second concept map in bubbl.us. This map still contains a lot of information, but I have focused in on two main questions--How do you teach babies to sign? and What are the benefits of signing with babies? 

There is still much to cover but I think these two ideas will support each other in ways that make the information and resources become unified. I just have to resign myself to the fact that there is much more to this topic that will have to be explored later. I am going to create a bibliography and keep links in delicious so that others can investigate further and I can return to other areas at another time.

Wondering

My main topic is "baby sign language." Possible subtopics include "language confusion" and "bi/multilingualism."

As I search for a focus for my project I wonder about the following questions (ordered as they came to mind).

1. What are the benefits of teaching sign language to hearing children? 

2. How do children learn language?

3. What is language confusion? Does it occur only when children learn two spoken languages or also when learning sign language in conjunction with a spoken language?

4. What are the benefits and challenges of multilingualism?

5. How does knowing sign language help children learn in other areas? 

6.What is the long-term impact of baby signing?

7. How do you teach a baby to sign? 

I really want to focus on the benefits of teaching children to sign. How does learning sign language carry over to other areas of social and cognitive development? Does knowing sign language help children's acquisition of a spoken language? By focusing on these questions I think I will also gain knowledge of teaching strategies and bilingualism, though these will be supplemental to learning the influence of signing with children.

Watching

As I read through this assignment I began thinking of many different activities and topics I am interesting in exploring.

My first notes looked like this:

• sign language/baby sign language
• language confusion/bilingualism/multilingualism
• Italy
• dairy farm
• food in books

Let me explain this varied list.


I have a 13 month old hearing child that I teach sign language.  I also speak Spanish and it is my hope that my daughter will be multilingual at a young age. My husband only speaks English so it falls to me to teach Spanish. I have not spoken Spanish with her as much as I had planned, it is my second language and English just comes more naturally if I am not around other Spanish speakers. So, needless to say, I have a huge interest in bilingualism and how children learn and communicate, hence my first two bullet points. 

Next, I have a love affair with Italy. I love everything I read, watch and listen to about Italy. I think the culture, people, food, way of life, land and language are amazing. However, I have never visited. I hope to travel there someday, though I always say that it is probably good I haven't gone yet because I may not come back! I love to read memoirs, nonfiction, fiction and travel books about Italy. I enjoy watching movies set in Italy. So when thinking of things I would like to learn more about Italy topped the list. 

Dairy farm comes from my interest in dairy goats. I currently have 9 LaMancha does. I have had goats my entire life and showed for 10 years in 4-H and open shows. I hope to share the showing experience with my daughter someday. I do not do as many things with the goat milk as I would like but hope to do more cheese, yogurt and soap making in the future. I collect children's goat books and love learning about those that have been able to make dairy goat farming a way of life. 

Lastly, I made a lot of notes on how food plays a prominent role in many books. I seem to be drawn to fiction and nonfiction titles that deal with food. As I was thinking of this topic I also realized that food seems to be closely connected to family and emotions in the novels.

By exploring my interests I was able to gain some insight into myself and the world in which I live. Daily life is so busy that it is easy to fall into routines and forget to look up now and then to see what is passes by or through your experiences.  Callison (2006) writes that, "Informal learning involves the lifelong process by which every individual acquires and accumulates knowledge, skills , attitudes, and insights from daily experiences and exposure to the environment--at home, at work, and at play." By simply observing my daughter I have learned so much about language acquisition, physical development and emotional maturity. Taking this informal knowledge and applying some inquiry skills I can increase my formal information base. 

As I considered all of these interests I decided to spend this inquiry project on baby signing. My daughter already has extensive spoken and signing vocabularies. However, I just teach her the signs I am familiar with to help her communicate. Signing with babies has become quite popular in recent years and parenting magazines often feature articles of how to sign with your child. I often get questioned about why and how I sign with her. I have a background in child development and have seen the benefits of signing with hearing children. However, I want to learn more about "what the experts say" so that I can give better answers and also advocate for teaching children to sign. 

Now onto formulating and narrowing all of the questions that come to mind when I think of the phrase "baby sign language."