Sign in the Day Care and Home

Problem:
Researchers have observed that sensitive responsiveness in the nonverbal and verbal messages between child and caregiver contribute to the child’s developing sense of self-worth. Infants develop the fine muscles in their hands before they develop those required for speech, so they’re equipped to communicate with you before they can speak. Often times behaviors surface out of frustration at not being able to communicate.

Response:
Sign in the Day Care and Home was designed to teach “goal-directed action," purposeful and intentional communication and promote the development of vocabulary in infant and toddlers.

By using sign with children and others with special communication challenges, parents, caregivers, educators, medical, and developmental professionals can promote language development, cognitive development and social-emotional development.

Impact:
Since this program began, 31 caregivers have taken the program. The participants have used their new skills in ways that have affected the people in their care:

• Working with a Down Syndrome girl who is still working on developing language. The child learned sign very early on and it works well for her for she is a visual learner. Signing to her will often generate a response before a verbal command. There are no Educational Interpreters for the Hearing Impaired in our area and by providing this class; motivated and caring adults can learn to communicate with students who have communication challenges.
• Though taking the class was for use in her daycare, one participant found that a grandchild, who found learning to read was difficult, would remember the written word once the word was signed to him.
• An aid at the city library took the class to communicate with deaf clients and the deaf husband of a deaf friend. But, she most enjoys using signs with her little grandson who isn’t old enough to talk yet. She says, “This lets me keep up with his wants and needs.”
• A childcare provider, who took the class in 2001, has a five-year old that has been signing since she was a toddler. The daughter can sign in sentences and is able to communicate with her deaf cousin, aunt and uncle. Her four-year old son still remembers and uses the signs he learned as a two-year old. She feels by communicating in sign when they are little, you are more attentive to their needs because you know they can communicate them to you.
• A couple of employees for Handicap Village, were practicing their signs with each other when one of the residents noticed the communication. He began signing to them. This was the first indication that this individual could communicate. They felt greatly rewarded for their efforts in learning sign. They could communicate with an individual that had been silent before – through sign.

Of the 31 individuals that have taken the class, all use it on a daily basis either with their own families, the children they care for, or the deaf adults they encounter through their jobs.

Contact:
Brenda Schmitt
Floyd County Extension Director
Phone 641-228-1453; Fax 641-228-1453
112 N Main Street, Charles City, IA 50616-2015
Email schmitt@iastate.edu