Watch Baby Hands On The Morning Show
As I posted yesterday we got a short notice call about a story that The Morning Show wanted to do about Baby Hands and Baby Sign Language which we shot in the studio in Sydney this morning.
For those of you that missed it you can watch it below here, I’d recommend pressing play and letting it buffer for a few seconds (this will also allow you to skip over the ad at the beginning).
Thanks very much to Katica and baby Marley for coming in with me. They have been attending classes with Catherine, our in Inner West teacher. Marley did really well under the bright lights and pulled out quite an impressive array of signs. If you watch closely you will even see that when he is first asked to sign “cat” he signs “where” as he is looking for the cat.
If you would like to attend a class on Baby Sign then please contact one of our teachers.
If you can organise a group of 5 or more then, as the organiser, you will get the class for free.
Happy Signing
Jackie
February 5th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Hi Jackie, I just watched the video with you, Katicia and Marley on the Morning Show – It was fantastic! Well done Marley, and well done Katicia for teaching Marley this invaluable skill! It was great how Marley was signing ‘where’ when he was asked to sign for cat and cow… This spot was SO much better than the spot you had on the 9am show a while back. These 2 hosts seemed very receptive..
Well done all 3 of you.
February 5th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
well done marley! what a STAR!!!!!!!!!
February 5th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
Marley is really cute…I am just wondering, if your baby sign language is the same as the adult sign language, how come it isn’t free like all the other Auslan resources?
February 5th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
I am a little confused, I searched on the net and it said that the deaf society doesn’t endorse the use of baby signing:
http://www.deafau.org.au/info/policy_babysigns.php
###Edited Note###
This is a very important point and I have answered below
Jackie Durnin
February 5th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
That was great! It’s amazing how quicky babies do pick up these signs, as long as they get love and encouragement all the way. How funny was little Marley?! So inqusitive and I loved how he picked the box up at the end, so he could watch it drop again!! Excellent work ladies and congratulations for a great product!
February 5th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Awesome work guys! Marley was excellent.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Loved this, I have tried to do this with my daughter (17 months) and she has a few that all look the same hehe. It helps so much that I know what she wants I am going to start soon with my 4 month old and hopefully we will miss some temper tantrums…. especaly with how loud #2 is lol.
Will have to grab out my dvd after watching this
February 6th, 2010 at 7:02 am
Awesome work! My baby has just started with Catherine and already knows 2 signs. I am looking forward to the others.
February 6th, 2010 at 9:11 am
Hi Isabelle, (response to comment above)
I’m not sure what Auslan resources you are referring to that are free?
I know that the courses that I have taken in Auslan have cost hundreds and some even a couple of thousand dollars to attend and also products such as books and dvd’s are sold, not given away.
Our Baby Sign uses the same signs as the Deaf Community, Auslan, and we have taken those and created simple key sign products for parents who wish to simple bridge the gap of communication with their pre-verbal child.
There may be some government assisted resources/products for the Deaf Community but at Australian Baby Hands we do not qualify for any Government assistance and, while it would be nice to to be able to provide free resources to all parents to get baby sign language in more homes, the cost to produce these products and run a business means that we have to charge for them.
Regards
Jackie
February 6th, 2010 at 9:39 am
Hi Francis, (response to comment above)
This is a really interesting point as many people are not aware of the complexity of AUSLAN or the different groups that surround it. This is quite a complicated subject in itself but I will try to answer you as best I can while keeping it as brief as possible.
There are different Sign Authority groups in Australia and when I initially came up with the concept of Australian Baby Hands, which was over 5 years ago, I approached several groups, including Deaf Australia, who you have linked to, prior to them actually posting that piece on their site.
It was the opinion of Deaf Australia that they did not wish to endorse baby sign because they felt that the research into baby sign was not conclusive enough.
I also approached Deaf Children Australia, as I still felt that it was important to respect the language of the Deaf Community and try as best I could to ensure that any product that I produced used correct AUSLAN and I wanted to also help give back to the community of the Deaf.
Deaf Children Australia were more receptive to the concept of baby sign, which at that time was virtually unheard of in Australia, and agreed to endorse Australian Baby Hands and assist with reviewing all the signs to ensure that we followed AUSLAN as best possible for baby sign.
A further group called ACARA was formed in 2006 as they were trying to “regulate, research and support the Australian Sign Language (Auslan) industry.” We worked with ACARA as a key goal for them was to try and enforce a regulatory standard that any product claiming to be AUSLAN was in fact using correct AUSLAN signs and I believe that this is an important issue. Unfortunately while baby sign was still relatively new at that stage there were, and still are, products on the market that are using American Signs or even made up signs and some of these groups claim to be using AUSLAN. This led to confusion for parents who were only after a simple form of communication but were now faced with unknown choice between unregulated products all making the same claims.
Australian Baby Hands is still the only product on the market that has been endorsed by any Signing Group and I have worked very hard to ensure that our products use AUSLAN.
Also in my book while I do cite the research and the benefits that have been done I also highlight that the use of baby sign should be viewed as a fun method to interact with your baby and cannot be “guaranteed to produce a more intelligent child“.
In saying that, in the last 5 years we have had literally thousands of parents who have used Baby Hands products and the stories and feedback from them, while certainly not scientific proof, are certainly proof that baby sign can and has helped many parents and babies to communicate, reduce frustration and in some cases help with speech development.
While that wasn’t to brief, I really hope that it helps to cover your question
Happy Signing
Jackie
February 6th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Hi there Jackie, I just watched that clip and thought it was fabulous. I just downloaded the chart u sent me, My lil boy is now 3mnths old but failed his hearing tests from birth and he will be fitted with hearing aids next month and i thought sign language would be an extra benifit for him. Thanks Nicci
February 6th, 2010 at 10:27 pm
Hi Jackie,
I’ve just watched the clip of your interview and would like to say what a wonderful job Marley did. I started signing to my son when he was 4 months old and he was able to sign ‘milk’ back to us. Unfortunately he just stopped when he turned 8 months. He does understand other signs though, like ‘eat’ and ‘drink.’ I only wish there was an instructor nearby so I could attend classes to keep me on the ball
February 7th, 2010 at 7:20 am
jackie,
watched the morning show program with Marley. it was great. The classes sound fantastic.
sinead
March 12th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
Hi Jackie – I saw the comment above about free resources – there is http://www.auslan.org which provides a very thorough list of many lexicon used within the Deaf community. The video clips are shown by native Auslan users. Additionally many public libraries could have the “Signs of Australia” DVD and dictionary. Well, where I live you can borrow them for free.
March 12th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Hi Briony
Thanks for your post.
I probably should have mentioned that my book Australian Baby Hands is available in many library’s around Australia as well so you could borrow it too or ask the library to get it in if they don’t have a copy. I actually found it once when I was in a library doing some research and it was actually a bit strange to find something that you have actually written your self sitting on the library shelf