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

watched the morning show program with Marley. it was great. The classes sound fantastic.

sinead

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

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

Will have to grab out my dvd after watching this