Learning to Sign-ing not sing-ing lah

Sometime in July I got to know from a friend that her ASD nephew learning to signing by watching dvd. It was a success coz he is now 4 years old and had no speech until about 5 weeks ago when he was introduced to Signing Time Vol 1 to 3. http://www.signingtime.com/

I had always been interested to learn sign language to communicate with nazurah to complement her PECS http://trainland.tripod.com/pecs.htm , but i just cant get started to learn. I guess the time and mood wasnt right. So my friend's sharing sparked my interest again. Ironically i have a book about sign language http://www.sign2me.com/pmu.php which i bought last year at a bookshop in USA but had never opened it until about 4 weeks ago. Since it was successful with her nephew, i better gave it a shot and started to learn and i made it a habit to talk and sign to Nazurah at the same time whenever possible.

My friend gave me Essie's contact http://www.giftofsigns.com/ . Just last Saturday i went to her class to see her introduce signing to parents with babies. Nazurah needs baby signing step to start off.

So I got my order of the signing time DVD vol 1 to 3 on Monday. http://www.planetbabysigns.com/ That evening my whole family watched and learned togather. Nazurah was not so interested because its something new but she did glances at the tv espeacially during song time. On wednesday Nazurah watched vol.2 once before bedtime.

AND LAST NIGHT she made her 1St attempt at signing !!!!!!

Nazurah sign "more" "tv" last night!!!

It was 10.30pm and i sign her to sleep while switching off the barney vcd shes watching...... she cried and stamped her feet to protest and i noticed both her hands were moving too.

She wasnt signing the exact way of signing but it was a resemblance to it. Just like toddler have baby way of prounouncing words to talk; there is also such a thing as baby way of signing.

Her way to sign "more" , her fingers were spread open and she was tapping her hands finger tips many times before i saw her hands changed sign to " tv "......... then i realised what shes doing so i just snapped out from my shock and responded her by signing with " You want more tv?". She stopped her noise but her hands still in the "tv" sign position. So to reward her 1st signing attempt i switched the tv back on again and let her watched for another hour!

I didnt expect her to start signing so fast! She only watched the dvds twice with "no interest" way but i did start signing with her about a month already. Yet i dont know whether she understand the purpose of what im doing. So that DVD watching somehow made her see and connected that what i have been moving my hands while talking has a meaning to it. Maybe she thinks im not weird after all since she sees other kids in the DVD doing it too! Autistic child is a visual learner anyway.

Im very excited and looking forward to getting more signs from her. Nazurah is still communicating with Pecs too. Signing to me is a great way to complement it when i dont have her PECs file within reach or need impromptu communication.

Ultimately im hoping for the day that she can talk coherently will come soon. And one day i wish you could read my posting of Learning to Sing-ing not sign-ing lah.

Amin.