Free Webinar: Babies & Sign Language – Give Them Their Words

Marsha Peterson is a single parent raising her son Chad who she fondly calls Potts. Chad was born with Down’s syndrome and Autism. As a baby he knew what he wanted, just like most babies, but couldn’t express it which often resulted in frustrated and often dangerous meltdowns. Chad’s special education teacher suggested sign language might be helpful. He began learning to sign in 1993 shortly after his first birthday. There was no time to attend sign language classes and videos were not an option. It was hard to find teachers and caregivers that knew how to sign, as well as frustrating to see that there can be different signs for the same word. Learning and generalizing signs became a bigger and bigger problem as Chad was expanding signs to communicate. So how do parents give their child a language and involve everyone? Marsha decided that creating a book using stories about things we do everyday would be a great way to learn and “generalize” those signs. It is also a fun way to introduce literacy to baby.