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Using Sign Language for Late Talkers

Late talkers, children aged 18 to 35 months with limited expressive vocabulary, represent approximately 15-20% of their age group. These youngsters produce fewer than 50 words and no two-word combinations. For example, Jason, a child I worked with, struggled to express himself through words alone at the age of two. Using sign language for late talkers can significantly aid their speech development and communication skills.

The Importance of Early Intervention

As a speech therapist, it’s crucial to recognize the need for support and intervention for late talkers like Jason. Delayed speech development can lead to frustration and problematic behaviors due to their inability to effectively communicate their wants and needs. This frustration can hinder their social and emotional development, affecting their ability to engage in meaningful interactions.

Late talkers receive reduced exposure to receptive language and fewer opportunities to practice producing speech, which can lead to further developmental delays. This gap in language skills can negatively impact literacy, academics, and school readiness, making learning more challenging as they progress.

In addition to academic challenges, late talkers may face social difficulties. Their inability to fully participate in conversations can affect their friendships and social interactions. They may be at an increased risk for bullying or teasing related to their verbal skills, which can erode their self-esteem and confidence.

Using Sign Language to Bridge the Communication Gap

In my role as a speech therapist, I often use tools like sign language to assist children like Jason in bridging the gap between their limited verbal communication and their needs. Using sign language for late talkers provides an essential means of expression as we work on developing their speech and language skills. With patience, therapy, and support, many late talkers often make significant progress and catch up to their peers in their language development.

Key Benefits of Gesture and Sign Language

Using sign language for late talkers can facilitate speech development in several key ways:

  • Basic Communication Before Speech Emerges: Reduces frustration and problematic behaviors since children can communicate wants and needs through gestures and signs, even with a limited vocabulary.
  • Reinforces Understanding of Language: Pairing gestures/signs with spoken words enhances children’s association of symbols (hand signs) with real objects/actions, supporting comprehension.
  • Offers Additional Modeling of Language: Seeing gestures/signs used alongside speech gives children more exposure to adult modeling of communication.
  • Encourages Joint Attention and Interaction: Using gestures/signs often prompts children to focus attention on the adult and elicits responsive communication. More interaction provides more language practice.
  • Reinforces Learning Through Multiple Sensory Modalities: Executing motor actions of gestures/signs activates kinesthetic and visual pathways in addition to auditory, enhancing memory and learning.
  • Motivates Attempts at Speech Production: As children learn to produce gestures/signs for communication, this builds pathways and skills needed for vocalizations/speech. Success in communicating nonverbally motivates verbal attempts.

In essence, using sign language for late talkers facilitates speech development by allowing for communication even before speech, modeling language, increasing interaction, and motivating verbal attempts through multisensory reinforcement. This buys time for late talkers to close gaps with peers and prevents secondary impacts on other speech and language domains.

Kickstarting Signing Success for Children with Speech Delays

Here is how I introduce signing to children with speech delays to set them up for success:

Initial Steps:

  1. Choose 2-4 Signs Initially: Too many signs can be overwhelming.
  2. Demonstrate Signs Repeatedly: Use signs whenever the situation arises.
  3. Guide the Child’s Hands: Gently guide their hands into the sign shape while verbalizing.
  4. React Excitedly to Signing Attempts: Encouragement is key!

Recommended First Signs:

  • More
  • All done
  • Eat
  • Drink
  • Milk
  • Please
  • Thank you
  • Bathroom
  • Ball
  • Baby

Personalized Sign Choices:

  • 18-month-old Marco gravitated to “more” and “eat” at meals.
  • 2 1/2-year-old Lila quickly learned “baby” and “ball.”
  • 3-year-old Noah loved signing “please” and “thank you.”

Allowing kids to latch onto motivating signs makes it fun! Starting with a few high-interest signs ensures signing success. Meeting kids’ needs and developmental level is key.

Keeping the introduction of signing simple and rewarding for children with speech delays is crucial. When broken down into manageable steps, introducing signing into communication can have a positive and, at times, even an immediate impact on their interactions.

Conclusion

My experience as a speech therapist has demonstrated the considerable benefits of using sign language for late talkers. Signing has often transformed interaction for many young patients I’ve had the privilege to work with over the years. While introduced as a therapeutic technique, I believe that early use of gestures plants seeds that may grow into instinctual habits reaching into adulthood.