Scriping to English?

[mc4_a]

I know with my daughter she has a lot of phases that she uses under certain circumstances that always have the same meaning, but would confuses the heck out of anyone else. It's a bit like listening to a different language.

So does your child have any phrases like that?

Here are some of my examples:
"I know very time to go to sleep" = "I don't want to go to bed. I'm not tired"

"Tigger*, the tracks go that way" = "no, I want to go this way (pointing)"

*yeah, she's a big Winnie The Pooh fan.

[milivica]

Sure. Vince definitely did this lots, not so much now but often you have to know him to know what he's talking about. He might start a sentence mid-thought, or talk about an event that happened 5 years ago like it was yesterday. It's hard to 'say' a picture - if your daughter is a visual thinker, which Vince is, which I am. I get around it with analogies, but that took years and years.

Did you ever consider using sign language with speech? It worked really really well when Vince was younger, had more trouble with being intelligible, and overall communication with words. I loved sign growing up, so much easier than speech. I was in a home for four years, where the three oldest were deaf, so that gave me the exposure. I went to school for one year in a school with deaf students, before IDEA, all in one section of the school...I'd always cut my classes and hang with them. Trying to belong somewhere and all.

Anyhow, just an idea. A visual thinker can think in sign, not words. Maybe start by signing Winnie The Pooh books or songs together.

[mc4_a]

She loves to sing. Signing interests me. Do you know any good books for learning the basics?

[Braindrain]

Here are a couple that I found on Barnes & Noble's site:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?WRD=American+Sign+Language+Phrase+Book&z=y&cds2Pid=9481

I have the first book myself and I thought that it was really good.

Good luck!:)

[milivica]

She loves to sing. Signing interests me. Do you know any good books for learning the basics?

There are some ASL songs on www.youtube.com

There are lots of free sites to teach ASL, personally, I'd learn by learning the songs. It will help more with the structure...it's a bit different than speaking, not so unnecessarily wordy.

Even if it doesn't turn into anything major, I think you two could have lots of fun with it...maybe even sending each other secret codes in sign that no one else will understand. Talk about a real reason to 'look at meeeee' - with sign you have to look to gain information, the same reason nt's look. Uhh huhhh. See?