Sign With Your Baby: How to Communicate With Infants Before They Can Speak - Softcover

Dr. Joseph Garcia; Sign2Me Early Learning

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0966836774 ISBN 13: 9780966836776

Publisher: Sign2Me Early Learning/Northlight Communications Inc., 2002

Synopsis

Trusted by more than 2,500,000 parents, medical professionals, teachers, childcare professionals . . . and babies . . . worldwide! Sign2Me Early Learning's Best Seller, "Sign with your Baby" is truly the Grandfather of all ASL Baby Sign Language programs! This is the program that launched the ASL Baby Sign Language revolution. This book teaches hearing parents how to use simple sign language gestures to communicate with their hearing infants before their infants can speak. Joseph Garcia uses anecdotes, practical guidelines and humor to explain the benefits and method for taking advantage of this unique form of early communication. He will help you recognize when your child is receptive to learning. He recommends which signs to teach first and shares ideas for games that can be fun and useful when introducing new signs. The book is also a useful reference with 145 clearly illustrated signs, enabling you to choose and teach the signs that will be most beneficial to you and your child. This book is also included in a separate "package" edition called the SIGN with your BABY Complete Learning Kit - which is comprised of the book, 60 minute training video and quick reference guide.

About this title

About the Author

Though no one in his family is Deaf or Hard of Hearing, Dr. Joseph Garcia has always been interested in gestural language and began studying American Sign Language (ASL) in 1975. He soon began using it extensively in his personal and professional life, and eventually became a Certified Interpreter. As he became more involved with the Deaf community, he soon noticed that hearing children of deaf parents started communicating with sign language at an earlier age than hearing children did with spoken language. Intrigued by this observation, he decided to research early childhood language acquisition and the part that sign language might be able to play in the process. He chose this topic for his graduate thesis in 1986. As his research proceeded, he uncovered a great deal of information about deaf children and their language development, but could find little on hearing children using ASL signs (i.e. hearing children of deaf parents, children with deaf siblings, etc..) He began investigating the results of using ASL signs as a method of early communication between hearing children and their hearing parents, and how signing affected the onset of expressive language in preverbal infants. What he learned was that babies who are exposed to ASL signs regularly and consistently, starting at six to seven months of age, can begin using signs effectively for meaningful two-way communication by the eighth or ninth month. They will also clearly understand the meaning of the signs quite some time before they actually initiate them on their own. During the last 30 years, Joseph was principal investigator for 109 private research grants. He has developed teaching and training materials for youth-related projects in the health care industry. He was appointed to and served two years on the Alaska Governor's Committee on Employment of The Disabled. He has continued to be active in the Deaf community. Dr. Joseph Garcia is the author of the definitive book on signing with your baby and baby sign language using ASL signs, called, "Sign with your Baby."

Edition details

• Publisher: Sign2Me Early Learning/Northlight Communications Inc.
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0966836774
• ISBN 13: 9780966836776
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112
• Editor: Sign2Me Early Learning/Northlight Communications Inc.