Belle’s signing helps us understand her when she’s tired, pronouncing things oddly, or just saying something unexpected. Done or all done makes a frequent appearance when she’s just over something. Continue reading “ASL Signs We Use: All Done”
Tag: sign language
Asking for Help
One of our goals for Belle is to have her ask for help instead of whine and cry when she can’t do something on her own. It could be putting on her own shoes, it could be moving something heavy, and in the kitchen, it’s frequently something like turning on the faucet.
Now, given a tall enough chair, Belle can turn on the water herself. She prefers her toddler furniture, though, and can’t quite reach on that chair.
When she starts with a whine, we ask “do you need help?” paired with a sign for “help me.”
When she starts with “wash,” “water,” or “hot/cold,” we say, “oh, do you need help washing your hands?” paired with signs for help and wash.
We’re listening for Continue reading “Asking for Help”
ASL Signs We Use: More
We’ve been signing with Belle since she was about 5 months old – inconsistently at best, and without anything like the native fluency in American Sign Language that would be found in the deaf community. Nonetheless, Belle continues to surprise us with signs we didn’t realize she knew. Funny isn’t it, that a child can understand a visual language before she can produce it, just like a spoken language?
Truthfully, it’s not so surprising. Language in any format lights up the same areas in a healthy brain!
One of the first signs Belle produced was more – and she didn’t verbalize it the same time. It’s not precisely the ASL sign, but much like her verbal “more” is an approximation of an adult’s, her sign for more is similarly approximate. Continue reading “ASL Signs We Use: More”
Baking with Belle 