Signing AND Speaking?

In this blog I will talk about how I use sign language when communicating with the children in my work. There are different ways to incorporate signs in communication, and this is not only used for Deaf* children (or adults). A frequently heard term is baby sign language, and another term is sign supported speech. I will first explain what these terms mean, what they have in common and what the differences are. I will then tell you more about what it means for bilingual children, and share my own experience and opinion. At last I have some short advice for parents who are interested in sign language for their hearing children.

Disclaimer: For some people and in particular part of the Deaf community, the term “baby sign language” is frowned upon. It is sometimes seen as a false term that undermines the value and status of sign languages. I understand this point of view, and have tried to portray my personal and professional experience and opinion in the matter. If anyone disagrees or has any other comments, please let me know! We are all here to learn and be respectful of each other.

*Deaf: The term Deaf with a capital ‘D’ is used to talk about the Deaf community. This can also include (hearing) children of deaf adults (CODA). The term deaf with lowercase ‘d’ is used for the psychical inability to hear.

First of all, what is a sign language? A sign language is a language that uses the visual-manual form, and is often the first language of Deaf people (especially those who are born deaf). Sign languages are real languages with their own grammar and vocabulary, and are used all over the world. There are many different sign languages, just like there are many different spoken languages. In the Netherlands, we have NGT which is related to the French and American Sign languages. BSL or British Sign language is a different language altogether. As I have no knowledge of BSL, I use NGT as a reference in this post. NGT is not a new language, but has been standardised and acknowledged fairly recently after it was illegal to use in education from 1880 until 1985 (this also happened to many other sign languages in Europe and also America).

Second in row is sign supported speech. Sign supported speech is a combination of both a sign language and a spoken language, used at the same time. A similar term for this is contact-signing. In the Netherlands, sign supported speech is often used with people who are hard of hearing or became deaf after already learning spoken Dutch. It is also commonly used in the communication with children with developmental disabilities, as studies show that using signs helps stimulate their language development. In the Netherlands sign supported speech is known as NmG (Dutch with signs). Sign supported speech often uses the vocabulary of the sign language, but otherwise follows the grammatical structures of the spoken language. In a grammatical spoken sentence, signs are added to the keywords (or all words) of that sentence.

For example: “Do you want to read a book?”. Some people will only add the sign for “book”, others may add signs for “you”, “read” and “book”, plus add a small grammatical part to convey the questioning tone of the sentence. In some cases it is also possible to speak while using the complete sign language, though this is often difficult for the person communicating.

Thirdly, what do people mean when they talk about baby signs or baby sign language? In recent years, many people have seen the benefits of using signs to support spoken speech in order to communicate with small babies. The idea is that babies are able to understand and use signs earlier than they are able to understand and speak words. This means that parents can communicate with their baby earlier than otherwise possible, which could help prevent frustration and strengthen communication and the emotional bond between parents and their baby. Nowadays, more and more people know about baby signs and it is continually growing.

In general, there are two versions of baby sign language, which is in fact not a real language. In one version, parents are taught the vocabulary of an already existing sign language, similar to the way sign supported speech works. In another version signs can be selected from more than one sign language, and or slightly altered or even completely made up to suit a baby’s motor skills. The signs are used simultaneously with the spoken words, and often only in the younger days of the baby. As soon as the baby start communicating verbally, the sign often fade away and are not used anymore.

Just as in any other languages, people can be bilingual in sign languages. When a person knows at least one sign language and one spoken language, they are called bimodal bilinguals. I’d love to talk more about sign language, the Deaf community and bimodal bilinguals, but it would be too much of a digression. For now I’ll focus on using signs for hearing people.

When used with bilingual children, adding signs to verbal communication can act as a bridge between the languages. If I take our own situation as an example, our daugher learns both Dutch and English. Every possible things, people and concepts will have two words attached to it. An example of this is the word “bicycle” in English and the word “fiets” in Dutch. Added signs however, are used the same in whatever language you are speaking. This sign will then create a link between the two words, making it easier for children to grasp the abstract idea of having two languages. The ability to think about languages this way (called metalinguistics) is already stronger in bilingual children than in monolingual children, but is even helped more by adding this overlapping sign.

As part of my studies to be a speech and language therapy, I have spend half a year learning the official Dutch Sign Language (NGT). In our classes we also discussed the history, the use, Deaf culture and the basics of translating back and forth between signed and spoken languages. As our teacher was Deaf herself and verbal communication with her was almost impossible, my classmates and I were fully immersed into the language from day one and quickly grew to a basic conversational level.

As I work with children with developmental disabilities, I currently use sign supported speech (NmG in Dutch) a lot. I see the use of sign supported speech as a great way to be able to boost the language development in many children and we’ve seen lots of succes stories. When using sign supported speech at work, I try to incorporate as much grammar and other aspects of the official sign language.
As a mum of our bilingual daughter, we try to use signing to create a bridge between the two languages. As raising children already takes up a lot of energy, and we also have the bilingualism and work etc, we don’t incorporate it as much as I would have liked. Hopefully this’ll change for the better in the future. My husband and I do sometimes sign amongst ourselves though, mainly when there’s a window in between us or there’s too much background noise to be able to hear each other.

I think it is a really good idea to introduce signing to babies. When it comes to the choice of signs however, I have some strong personal and professional opinions on what should or shouldn’t be used and why. Of course, other people might agree or disagree, and that is okay.
When choosing to incorporate signing in hearing families, I am of the opinion that you should introduce as much of an official sign language as possible. I’m not a fan of extracting signs from multiple languages or altering any sign to accommodate for baby’s motor skills.

The reason for this is as follows. When families want to use signing to communicate earlier with their baby, and drop the signing once the verbal communication is effective enough, it doesn’t matter what you use as signs. However, what if your child may need to keep using signs as additional support of the verbal speech? In official instances and specialised schools often the official signs are used. This would mean having to transition to new signs altogether.

Another reason is that my ideal would be that people don’t stop using signs as soon as the child begins to speak more. As a part of being inclusive to all people, I would love it if every person knows at least a bit of the sign language used by Deaf people in their environment. Of course adding it to school curricula would be perfect, but even the small first step of using official signs with babies is worth something. This way we are not only taking from the Deaf community, but also giving something back.

The third reason for me to use vocabulary from official sign language is that there is no need to change signs to make it easier for babies to make them. Why would it be any different than in speech, where there is also no need to simplify spoken words to make it easier for babies to say them. Examples like using “nom-noms” instead of “eating/foods” make me cringe, and baby signs have a similar connotation for me. (This usage of “baby words” is part of baby talk or motherese, which consist of that high pitched, exaggerated speech most people use naturally with small children. I’ll probably write a post about this later as this is definitely not all bad and could actually help language development on some points!)

As I have written above, using sign language or signs in addition to spoken language can have many different forms. For children who are Deaf or hard of hearing, signing is essential to their language development. But there are also many benefits of using signing for hearing children, both monolingual and bilingual.

If you are interested in incorporating signing in your repertoire, here are a few final pieces of advice.

• Think about what your end goal is. Do you want to only speed up communication temporarily, use it as continued support of the verbal language or take it further to invest in learning a new language?
• Choose to use (or not use) signing in the way that fits with your own beliefs. You don’t have to agree with me or anyone else for that matter, just make sure you make informed decisions.
• Don’t be afraid to fail, or do too little. Before we had our daughter, I thought I would do so much. Taking care of children is tough enough, you don’t have to sign every single word or every single day. Small steps get you further than forever struggling to leap.

Originally published at https://intentionallybilingual.weebly.com.