Baby Sign Language: How it Began and Where This Unique Form of American Sign Language Originated

Baby Sign Language

The best way to learn sign language, as is the best way to learn anything, is to take a systematic approach to your education. By doing such you will be able to take the steps that are necessary in order to learn sign language in the shortest time possible. While it is easy to learn sign language, you will find some specific nuances that are country or race specific. For example, what holds good in British sign language could differ from the sign language used in another country. Hearing parents who choose to learn sign language often learn it along with their child. Nine out of every ten children who are born deaf are born to parents who hear.

The Baby Sign program and philosphy began with made-up gestures that were not/are not related to ASL, which by the way is the third most commonly used language in our country after English and Spanish. With the last printing of the Baby Signs book, some ASL signs were added to their system of made-up gestures but as someone who has signed for nearly twenty years, some of the signs labeled as ASL are not ASL signs I have ever seen. They were given a copy of the CD-Rom with directions to review and write down each question in English (conceptually). Commands can appear in eight spoken languages as preferred (Danish, English, French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, or Swedish) and fingerspelling keyboards and sign language dictionary files are available for 14 countries. This makes it possible to type a word and have a sign appear, which makes the program usable by those not highly skilled in the signed language.

In the United States, many African Americans in the South who communicate through sign language use a variant of standard ASL, just as many African Americans might communicate through their own vernacular English in speech. In Switzerland, there are five geographic dialects of Swiss German Sign Language with slight variations that derive from regional schools for the deaf. American Sign Language has unique syntax and grammar, entirely different from the English language; however, it may be easier for a person with autism to learn because of its visually compact structure . Fewer signs are necessary when signing in ASL versus when using Signed English or spoken English. The presence of an ASL translation of the Mass would be entirely irrelevant to the status of the English translation.