baby signing

[Carol Padden]

In an odd way, you could say that the desire to get hearing babies to
communicate
early is the same desire to get deaf children to speak - muteness is
upsetting, and
should be corrected with intervention.  Hearing babies should be taught to
sign though
the prospect of them signing for the rest of their lives might not be good,
and deaf
babies should be taught to speak though the prospect of them speaking for
the rest of
their lives might not be good either.

I agree that it is an unusual development of events -- this interest in
teaching hearing
babies to sign -- and that it might not be what it seems on the surface.

Carol Padden




At 11:54 AM +0000 3/20/01, B.Woll wrote:
>I've tried to avoid getting stuck into this, but here goes:
>
>I agree with Anne Baker, Volterra & Caselli 1985; and Petitto.
>Unless clear criteria are used to distinguish gestures from signs,
>the shared modality is likely to obscure the difference. Most
>parents find that their children will produce gestures such as 'bye-
>bye' or 'blowing a kiss' before the first true words. That just
>demonstrates that gesture precedes language. Claims about the
>easier production of signs vs. words also tends to ignore the actual
>prolonged development of correct sign articulation. I also have to
>agree with the earlier comments: if signing is so great for children's
>brains that it's really good for hearing children, why don't we hear
>more about how great it is for deaf children. It's frustrating to see so
>much publicity about the benefits of signing for the hearing, while
>deaf children are still denied exposure to a sign language.
>
>Cheers,
>
>
>Dr Bencie Woll
>b.woll at city.ac.uk
>Chair of Sign Language and Deaf Studies
>Language and Communication Science
>City University, Northampton Square
>London EC1V 0HB, UK
>Tel: +44 (0)20 7477 8354 (voice) +44 (0)20 7477 8314 (text)
>Fax: +44 (0) 20 7477 8577