Baby sign language is not only about a few signs that you can learn and then teach your child. That is what I learned on my recent trip overseas, to my homeland, Israel. During my visit, I visited a fascinating children museum exhibit! The walls were monochromatic. The rooms were bare and sparsely furnished. Our museum guide was completely silent.
Sign Language and a museum?! What do they have to do with each other?!
Sign Language is easy to learn. Well, would you believe it was one of the most integrative and amazing museum visits I and my kids have ever experienced? The exhibit is called "Dialogue in Silence" Can you guess what the theme was? As you guessed, the tour explores the world of a deaf or hearing-impaired person. This tour's goal is to give the visitor the real experience of how it feels to be deaf or hearing impaired. It is a true hands-on exhibit. So, how can you really empathize with a deaf person? The answer is --- experience what he or she feels.... The SILENCE.
Sign Language is the only way of communication the guide used with us. The guide we had was deaf herself, and she welcomed us into her world of soundlessness by distributing soundproof headphones. At first, it was disorienting, we couldn't hear a thing, and we were not allowed to speak either (I am so proud of my 4 years old son who was quiet the entire time, although the tour is geared towards 9 years old and up).
Sign Language?! Is it only for people who know sign language?! The answer is no. Our tour guide was so engaging and the activities were so evocative and exciting, that soon we all forgot completely that we couldn't hear anything!
Baby Sign Language?! Baby Signing?! Baby Signs?! No, not only. The experience certainly wasn't just a tour to promote. Rather, it made everyone aware of many tools of communication.
(Baby) Sign Language emphasizes the basic tools of communication:
Facial expressionsBody languageGesturesHand movementSigning with Children during the tour opened up for us a world of richer communication, every little movement matters. Even I, an avid sign language user, discovered an astonishing new world without the crutch of verbal communication.
Every hint of an emotion, every gesture, every look--- all must be noticed in order to understand each other. Being conscious of all those signs you send out becomes even more important when there are no voices or verbal expressions, just like with children and kids
The end of the tour ended with a real life experience: ordering snacks and drinks in a cafeteria mimicking the deaf world. The children had to order all in sign language. They used sign language easily to order snacks and drinks at the cafeteria near the end of the tour. Each person was also given his or her name in signing, just like we do in SignShine classes. What a gift we have given our children!
Etel Leit is an internationally recognized leader in the field of signing with babies and young children. The wide reach of her business in California; the international reach of the website Etel administers; as well as her blogs, her articles, her seminars, and her live and television appearances worldwide, offer a very strong platform for promoting EzineArticles. Etel has been Presenter of the Month by Sign2Me, an international organization; She a regular online contributor to the Hot Moms Club magazine; and has been featured on Brian Williams NBC night show, FOX11, CNN.com, AOL, Yahoo, MSN, in Family Magazine, the Jewish Journal, Baby LA Parent, and many other publications. As a leader at the forefront of baby signing, Etel Leit, the owner and founder of SignShine invites you to our program http://www.signshine.com/
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