How Signing Enhances the Learning of Spoken Language in Children - Dissertation Example

? How signing supports/enhances the learning of spoken language in children The use of sign language for communication with children and baby has proved to be an essential element in language learning process. The focus of this paper is on the importance of sign language in learning of spoken language among children. It has been discovered that the parents and teachers are showing more and more interest in using sign language to communicate with their children. The writer has discussed the various advantages of sign languages for learning and acquiring the language in a sophisticated manner. Some cases and experiences share by the experts have been mentioned in the paper. So that it would facilitate to grasp the subject more effectively and clearly. Introduction: Sign language is as important as the spoken language. It has probably been emerged out of the necessity of interaction where words cannot work due to many circumstances. There are different signs for different expressions and many times these varied signs expressed by the person tell lots of things. Sign language is the language which is spoken by using signs. It consists of facial expressions, gestures and your body language. “Sign languages have been described as having a phonological structure made up of 5 parameters: handshape, movement, location, hand orientation and facial expression. (Pg. Xi Garry Morgan and Bencie Woll,) Sign language is also defined as “a system of communication using visual gestures and signs, as used by deaf people.” Sign language is not just used by deaf people actually but it is used in various circumstances. We can also call it as non-verbal communication. Most of the time, we say many things through sign language only. “Human communication consists of 93% body language and paralinguistic cues, while only 7% of communication consists of words. (James Borg 2010) Our efforts in this paper have been concentrated on using sign language while teaching spoken language to the children, babies. Key words: sign language, spoken language, children, babies. The sign language for deaf and normal children: When I asked the question about the usage of sign language among the children to the people around me, I got a very common response that sign language is generally used to communicate with deaf children. But very few of them are aware about the long term advantages of sign language in spoken language learning process among the hearing students. The research as well as the ground breaking efforts had been carried out not only on Deaf children but the hearing children also. The study also had been conducted on the acquisition of sign language as a first language among both of the above mentioned groups. Sign language is basically used at the very early process of language learning especially the early age of the child. Sign language also is very useful in learning language to deaf students. The Idea behind Sign Language: The idea behind using sign language in language learning process is that the vision or visuals are most powerful tool especially for the small babies and the deaf children. Sign language is not universal but it is different in every culture and country. The sign language used in Britain is different from the American Sign Language. The person who is well acquainted with ASL (American Sign Language) may not understand BSL (British Sign Language) Children basically learn sign language for their parents at the initial stage for communication. Communication is one of the most important processes in child’s development. Communication as Vygotsky (1978) have stated, “It is widely recognized that communication is at the heart of child development, be it cognitive, social, emotional or behavioral.” (Vygotsy L.S. 1978) Below is the chart which is associated with the sign language of the small babies: Figure 1 Sign language for Interpretation In case of deaf children, some parents choose to take support of sign language to them. Surprisingly these children learn sign language more quickly and fluently than their parents. It is also a misconception of some of the people that sign language has limitations and it cannot be interpretative. It is again a wrong perception. For broad interpretation such as telling stories, jokes sign language can be used. The experts in sign language can entertain the children by telling jokes stories. This is an incident where Patricia, a deaf adult and expert in sign language told the joke to the children in sign language “When Patricia finished telling the joke, all the students laughed, which is contrary to the idea that the deaf are not able to understand jokes.” (Maria Christina Da Cunha Pereira Regina Maria De Souza) Signs used by Babies: Though language learning is a life-long activity, in real sense it starts in the early age of our life. The first five years of the life of child is a crucial period. During this period, the development of brain is rapid consequently children are more rapid and receptive in this period. It is the fact that the muscles of hands in infants develop before developing the required elements for speaking. The babies are fully equipped with a certain tool to communicate before they actually start speaking words. For conveying the message to the proper person, most babies invent their own signs. Let me share you my personal experience. When my baby was at her infant stage, she used to suck her own lips in a very unusual manner. She used to suck her upper lip to indicate that she is hungry and she wanted breast feeding. When the babies look at their mothers or their loving ones, they throw up their arms in glee. This is the sign language to express their happiness and their desire to go in the arms of that person. Sometimes the baby rubs their eyes and shows restlessness, which indicates that the baby is sleepy. The baby grunts, points and use his hands and body as an aid to communicate. The most significant research was an NIH funded study. It was a research to explain the importance of sign language in development process. The research was involved in comparing two groups of 11 month old babies. One group was taught baby sign language. The second group was given verbal training. Surprisingly, the signing group was more advanced talkers than the group given verbal training. The lead of the signing group continued to grow, with the signers exhibiting verbal skills 3 months ahead of the non-signers at 2 years old. Their lead seemed to shrink a little after two years old, but even at three years old – the signers were still ahead (Susan Goowyn, Linda Arcedolo, Catherine Brown 2000) Susan Goowyn, Linda Arcedolo) The authors of the NIH study, followed up with the children at 8 years old. Surprisingly, there was still a difference. Signers showed IQ’s 12 points higher than the non-signers, even though they had long since stopped signing. This put the signers in the top-25% of eight year old, compared to the non-signers who were close to average (Linda P. Acredolo, and Susan W. Goodwyn, 2000) Here I would like to mention a case: Carlotta was sound asleep when her inner “mommy alarm” went off. Fifteen month – old Sophia was crying. Hurrying into her daughter’s room, Carlotta noticed immediately that Sophia was desperately and repeatedly blowing air through her lips, her sign for hot. “Are you hot, Sweetie?” asked Carlotta, surprised because the room was actually quite chilly. When the blowing and crying continued unabated, Carlotta felt Sophia’s forehead and discovered the source of her daughter’s distress: “Oh, you’ve got a fever!” Some medicine, water, and lots of cuddles later, Sophia was content to settle back down in her crib. (Linda Acredolo and SusanGoodwyn (2002)) The above case is one finer example of the complete communication between the mother and the daughter with the help of sign language. Sign language thus has become the blessing and it just the most effective tool for occurrence of communication process between child and mother. Sofia could tell her mother about her sufferings through sign language and Carlotta also was able to understand what the problem of her daughter was. In another case which is described in “Baby Sign Language Basics..” by Monta Briant explains how the sign language is important in knowing all the needs of the child. Apart from hunger thirst, and other basic things the children have one more thing in their mind and that is fear or insecurity. Mona Briant tells an experience in the following case under the chapter heading “Baby Sign Language saves the day, keeping Elephants at Bay. She describes: “My ten month-old daughter, Sirena, had always been easy to put to bed, so when she clung to me and cried one warm night, I wondered what could be wrong. Was she suddenly old enough to protest going to sleep? I look at her and asked, “What’s wrong?” simultaneously shrugging my shoulders and lifting my hands, palms up, in the natural gesture that is also the American Sign Language (ASL) sign for WHAT? My tiny daughter immediately pointed to the open window and waved one hand in arc out from her face, a gesture that I recognized as her approximation of the ASL signs for ELEPHANT. Now, I already knew that Sirena was terrified of elephants, expressing this when she saw them at the zoo and on video – even a cute, fluffy hand puppet wasn’t okay. I’d also noticed that recently Sirena had begun signing ELEPHANT whenever she heard a car alarm, or siren, which she’d apparently decided were noises made by elephants, so I followed her gaze to the window that, until this evening, had been closed while she slept. Suddenly I saw my urban neighborhood through my baby’s eyes: a noisy place full of trumpeting elephants who were out of sight yet clearly around each corner, just waiting to reach or climb through a window carelessly left open! I closed and locked the window and shut the blinds, and my sweet little went happily to sleep. (Briant Monta, 2009) After reading the case one thing is clear that the babies talk so many things with their parents through sign language. In such situation is it important for the parents also to use the sign language to communicate with them? They should definitely learn the language. If the narrator of the above case had not been aware of the sign language, she could have never been understood the fear of her daughter. Her knowledge of sign language gave her daughter a happiness and comfort which leads to building a strong bond between child and the parents. Sign Language and its Benefits: The babies accumulate a great confidence among themselves if they are using sign languages. Most of the organizations in UK have been promoting sign language with all its advantages. They have elaborated some major benefits of sign language: 1. The baby can communicate its wants, its problems and their observations before the actual speaking process starts. 2. Due to the healthy communication with the help of sign language, the frustration of both child and mother and other concerned people reduces. 3. It also reduces the tendency of tantrums among the children. The sign language helps the parents to give a new insight to their baby’s world. 4. The research on Baby sign language has found that using baby sign language improves cognitive and emotional development. 5. The use of sign language is helpful to the baby to start communicating about six months earlier. 6. The sign language accelerates the baby’s progress to words or verbal language. 7. When the process of actual speech starts in the child’s life, the content of speech becomes more sophisticated and fuel intellectual development. Research on Sign language: Many experts have spent time in the research of the role of sign language among the babies and the children. The author Marilyn Daniels advocates signing’s power to stimulate brain growth in her book, “Dancing With Words: Signing for Hearing Children’s Literacy” (Bergin and Garvey 2001) She has explained scientifically why sign language is more effective than verbal language. For this she has explained the neurological condition of the brain. ‘Verbal language is processed by the left side of the brain and speech is produced in the frontal left lobe (Broca’s Area). Sign language as a visual and kinaesthetic language is received by the right hemisphere and processed in the left. Signs are produced by activity in the Broca’s area. Hence the activity in the speech part of the brain is commenced much earlier than if the baby did not sign. ‘Sign language instruction, with its prerequisite visual component, creates an increase in brain activity by engaging the visual cortex and presenting an additional language to the young learner. The heightened cerebral action occurs in both the right and left hemispheres of the brain. The increase in language activity stimulates the development of the brain by stimulating the formation of more synapses or connections among brain cells. Using sign language and English in tandem provides a much richer language base for brain activity and brain growth and development.’ Baby Signs: how to talk with your baby before your baby can talk (McGrawHill Contemporary, 2009) is an important piece of research cited by most 3 organisations promoting signing with babies. One more research was conducted by involving 140 students with their parents. The children were divided into two groups one group was baby signers and another was non-baby signers. The group who was using sign language was much ahead than the group who was not using sign language. Further it was also found that the babies who were using sign languages, could use longer sentences significantly. At three years of age they showed an average increase of 11 months above the norm. When followed up at eight years of age there were signs of increased IQ among the baby signers. The researchers concluded that signing with babies helps them develop both their language and cognitive skills. Lot of study has been conducted about the effectiveness of using sign languages while communicating with babies. The debate associated with this topic was given in the pages of Bulletin, a magazine published by Royal College of Speech and Language Therapist. (RCSLT) An event called ‘The Great Baby Sign Debate also held at University College London. Dr. Chloe Marshall focussed on two major points: 1. Does baby signing make any difference and can the claims in its favour be substantiated?’ 2. ‘Should Parents who assume that their baby is trying to communicate encourage that communication?’. I have also read a blog tagged sign language on internet. In this blog, Anna G. the writer has shared her own experience of encountering with sign language while communicating with her small baby. “When my daughter was younger, we used baby sign language to communicate. At first, I was skeptical, but I quickly found that joining gestures to words allowed us to understand each other much better than we would have using words alone. As my little girl grew and became more verbal, we used sign less and less. However, I still hold a fondness in my heart for the ways this method helped me understand her. (Anna G Sep.20, 2011) More and more smart mothers have started getting aware about the importance of sign language and now they are trying to learn the sign language. Sign Language and Different Theories: Different theories can be applied while using sign language, they are as follows: Behaviourist Theory: American psychologist B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) developed behaviourist theory which primarily includes the sign language His theory is as follows: “Babies begin babbling and cooing, and when they make noises that sound like words, the adults around them give them praise and attention, thus reinforcing the behavior and encouraging the child to make more noises that sound like words.” This theory is closely associated with the sign language process. Gestural Theory: Gestural theory states that vocal human language has developed from gestural signs. (Hewes (1973), Premack & Premack (1983), Kimura (1993), Newman (2002), Wittmann (1980, 1991)) Cognitive Theory: Cognitive theory advocates that the child must experience a concept before they are able to link a word to it. Before expressing this experience in words they use the sign language itself to express their experience. The social constructiveness theory or social interactionist theory: This theory was greatly influenced by the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934). This theory argues that the process of language development occurs in the child out of the necessity for communicating his needs. These needs are expressed through the sign language such as crying, laughing, facial expressions and other physical displays. The child at his initial age cannot communicate complex thoughts; in fact expressing complex thought is not required for the child at the early age of his life. But as mentioned above the complex thoughts or interpretations (Stories, jokes) can be told through sign language. Conclusion: For the healthy physical and mental growth of the child, sign language is very important. If the parents are insistent in learning sign language, they could easily enter their baby’s amazing world. They can read her mind. They can create stronger bond with their babies. Sign language is a quite natural process as the child uses it. So, one should not underestimate the natural processes and be skeptical about the positive outcomes of these processes. Rather sign language is the first language of the child, even before his mother tongue. Sources: 1. Garry Morgan and Bencie Woll,(2002) “Direction in Sign Language Acquisition,” John Benjamins Publishing Company, Pg. XI 2. Borg James, Body Language:7Easy Lessons to the Master of Silent Language, FT Press,) 3. Vygotsy L.S. (1978) Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 4. Figure 1 is taken from the website: www.signwithme.com 5. Maria Christina Da Cunha Pereira Regina Maria De Souza “The Importance of Sign Language for Deaf Student’ Literacy http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/8477.pdf 6. Catherine Brown Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development, Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 24, 81-103(2000) 7. Linda P. Acredolo, and Susan W. Goodwyn, The Longterm Impact of Symbolic Gesturing During Infancy on IQ at Age 8, International Conference on Infant Studies (July 18, 2000: Brighton, UK) 8. Linda Acredolo and SusanGoodwyn (2002) “Baby Signs, How to talk to your baby before your baby can talk”, McGraw-Hill E book 9. Briant Monta (2009) “Baby Signs Language Basics: Early Communication for Hearing Babies and Toddlers” published by Hay House 10. Bergin and Garvey 2001) “Dancing With Words: Signing for Hearing Children’s Literacy” 11. Anna G. “Baby Sign Language Before Speech,” September 20, 2011. http://www.mymcpl.org/blog/baby-sign-language-speech 12. Skinner B.F. 1904-1990) Behaviorist Theory Read More